| Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Anthologies Eyewitness and other tales of detection , 2000, (Minerva-India) , by Satyabrata Dam ( Volume 2, Number 2, July-December 2001 ) Atlases and Picture books Muerte! , 1st Edition, 2001 (Feral House) edited by Harvey Bennet Stafford ( Volume 2, Number 1, January-June 2001 ) Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook , Trade Paperback Edition, 1996, (Feral House) , Edited by Sean Tejaratchi ( Volume 2, Number 2, July-December 2001 ) To go to Atlases of a more technical nature, click here . Biotechnology Biotechnology Unzipped - Promises and Realities , 1997, (Joseph Henry Press) , by Eric S. Grace ( Volume 3, Number 2, July-December 2002 ) Music of Life: Development of Molecular Biology – A Personal Account , 2004, (Vigyan Prasar), by D.P. Burma ( Volume 12, Number 1, January - June 2011 ) Bones The Bone Detectives , 1st Edition, 1996, ( Little, Brown and Company, Boston ) by Donna M. Jackson. Photographs by Charlie Fellenbaum ( Volume 2, Number 1, January-June 2001 ) Bones - A Forensic Detective's Case Book , ( M. Evans and Company, Inc. ) by Dr. Douglas Ubelaker and Henry Scammell ( Volume 2, Number 1, January-June 2001 ) Skulls and Skeletons , 1st Edition, 2001 by Christine Quigley ( Volume 3, Number 2, July-December 2002 ) To go to related books of a more technical nature (Human Osteology), click here . Cloning The Ethics of Human Cloning, 1 st edition, 1998 (The AEI Press) , (Publisher for the American Enterprise Institute) by Leon R. Kass and James Q. Wilson ( Volume 4, Number 2, July-December 2003 ) Communication/Writing Skills A Guide To Writing In The Sciences, 1 st edition, 2000 (University of Toronto Press) by Andrea A Gilpin and Patricia Patchet Golubev ( Volume 4, Number 2, July-December 2003 ) To go to related books of a more technical nature, click here . Controversies MMR Science & Fiction, Exploring the vaccine crisis, 2004 (Granta Publications) by Richard Horton ( Volume 8, Number 2, July-December 2007 ) Criminal Psychology Malicious Intent- A writer's guide to how murderers, robbers, rapists and other criminals think (THE HOWDUNIT SERIES) , First edition, 1995, (Writer's Digest Books) by Sean Mactire ( Volume 2, Number 1, January-June 2001 ) To go to related books of a more technical nature (Forensic Psychiatry), click here . Disposal of the dead Cremation in America , 2004, (Prometheus Books) by Fred Rosen ( Volume 5, Number 2, July - December 2004 ) DNA Technology An A to Z of DNA Science , 2001, (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press) by Jeffre L. Witherly, Galen P. Perry and Darryl L. Leja ( Volume 3, Number 1, January - June 2002 ) The DNA Saga: 50 years of the Double Helix , 2003, (Vigyan Prasar) by Biman Basu ( Volume 5, Number 2, July - December 2004 ) To go to DNA Technology Books of a more technical nature, click here . Drugs of Abuse Alcohol : A Social and Cultural History, 1st edition, 2006 (World Health Organization) edited by Mack P. Holt ( Volume 11, Number 1, January-June 2010 ) Drugs and Society , 6th edition, 2001, (Jones and Bartlett Publishers) by Glen Hanson and Peter Venturelli ( Volume 2, Number 2, July - December 2001 ) Ketamine: Dreams and Realities, 1st edition, 2001 (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) , ( Volume 5, Number 2, July-December 2004 ) Young People and Substance Use: A Manual - Create, use and evaluate educational materials and activities, 1st edition, 1999 (World Health Organization) , (Document produced by the WHO Division of Substance Abuse) ( Volume 4, Number 2, July-December 2003 ) To go to Drugs of Abuse and Substance Abuse Books of a more technical nature, click here . Encylopedias Encyclopedia of Forensic Science - A Compendium of Detective Fact and Fiction , 2002 [Oryx Press (An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc)] by Barbara Gardner Conklin, Robert Gardner and Dennis Shortelle ( Volume 6, Number 2, July - December 2005 ) Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work , 2006 [ Greenwood Press (An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc)] edited by Melissa Hope Ditmore ( Volume 8, Number 1, January - June 2007 ) Great American Court Cases (four volumes; Vol. 1-IV) , 1999 (The Gale Group) edited by Mark F. Mikula, L. Mpho Mabunda (Editors), Allison McClintic Marion (Associate Editor) ( Volume 5, Number 2, July - December 2004 ) Sex and Sexuality [Three Volumes] , 2006 [ Praeger Publishers (An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc)] edited by Richard D. McAnulty, M. Michele Burnette ( Volume 8, Number 1, January - June 2007 ) Explosives/Explosion Investigation The Big Bang - A History of Explosives , 1998 (2001 reprint) (Sutton Publishing Limited) by G.I.Brown ( Volume 3, Number 1, January - June 2002 ) Explosion Aboard the Iowa , 1999 (Naval Institute Press) by Richard L. Schwoebel ( Volume 3, Number 1, January - June 2002 ) To go to Explosives/Explosion Investigation Books of a more technical nature, click here . Fiction Dead Sea Murder , ( Rogue Publishing ), by Amanda Dickerson ( Volume 8, Number 1, January - June 2007 ) [E-Book, available as a pdf file] Lucky Thirteen (2006), ( iUniverse ) by Ramesh K. Sharma ( Volume 7, Number 1, January - June 2006 ) Fingerprinting Fingerprints - The origins of Crime Detection and the murder case that launched Forensic Science First Edition, 2001, ( Hyperion ) by Colin Beavan ( Volume 2, Number 2, July-December 2001 ) Suspect Identities - A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification First Edition, 2001, ( Harvard University Press ) Simon A. Cole ( Volume 2, Number 2, July-December 2001 ) To go to Fingerprinting (Dactylography) Books of a more technical nature, click here . Forensic Anthropology T he Mummy Congress - Science, Obsession, and the everlasting dead First Edition, 2001, ( Theia Books ) by Heather Pringle ( Volume 2, Number 2, July-December 2001 ) Forensic gadgets/toys/other tidbits T -shirt Skull Halloween Style . ( Volume 9, Number 1, January-June 2008 ) [T-Shirt] Ultraviolet (UV) light pens produced by Ben Joseph ( Volume 7, Number 1, January - June 2006 ) [UV pens] General Interest Accounting For Horror - Post-Genocide Debates in Rwanda (2004), ( Pluto Publishing Ltd ) by Nigel Eltringham ( Volume 8, Number 1, January - June 2007 ) Burke and Hare, The Year of the Ghouls , 2002, [ Mainstream Publishing ], by Brian Bailey ( Volume 5, Number 2, July-December 2004 ) Food Safety: Public Healthy Significance Of Food Borne Illnesses , 2003, [ World health organization (Regional office for the western pacific)], ( Volume 5, Number 2, July-December 2004 ) Hippocratic Oaths - Medicine and its Discontents , 2004, [ Atlantic Books (an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd.)], by Raymond Tallis ( Volume 5, Number 2, July-December 2004 ) Hypereides - The Forensic Speeches: Introduction, translation and commentary (2001), ( Oxford University Press ) by David Whitehead ( Volume 7, Number 1, January - June 2006 ) Murderous Medicine - Nazi Doctors, Human Experimentation, and Typhus (2001), ( Praeger Publishers ) by Naomi Baumslag ( Volume 7, Number 1, January - June 2006 ) Postmortem: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious Deaths , 2007, ( University Of Chicago Press ), by Stefan Timmermans ( Volume 8, Number 2, July-December 2007 ) Tombstones: Seventy-five famous people and their final resting places , 1996, ( Ten Speed Press ), by Gregg Felsen ( Volume 3, Number 2, July-December 2002 ) General Overviews of Forensic Science Hidden Evidence - The Story of Forensic Science and How it helped to solve 40 of the World's toughest crimes , First edition, 2000, (Quintet Publishing) by David Owen ( Volume 2, Number 1, January-June 2001 ) Humor From Voodoo to Viagra: The Magic of Medicine (37 Uplifting Essays from a Doctor's Bag of Tricks) , 2001, (Ten Speed Press) , by Oscar London, M.D., W.B.D. ( Volume 3, Number 2, July-December 2002 ) Kill as Few Patients as Possible (and fifty-six other essays on how to be the World's best doctor) , 1997, (Ten Speed Press) , by Oscar London, M.D., W.B.D. ( Volume 3, Number 2, July-December 2002 ) Insects in the detection of Crime (Forensic Entomology) A Fly for the Prosecution , First edition, June 2000, (Harvard University Press) by M.Lee Goff ( Volume 2, Number 1, January-June 2001 ) To go to Forensic Entomology books of a more technical nature, please click here . Investigation Fitted in: The Cardiff 3 and The Lynette White Inquiry , 1997, ( The Fitted In Project ), by Satish Sekar ( Volume 3, Number 2, July-December 2002 ) [Featured Book] Who Killed King Tut? Using Modern Forensics To Solve A 3,300-Year-Old Mystery , 2004, (Prometheus Books), by Michael R. King and Gregory M. Cooper with Don DeNevi ( Volume 6, Number 1, January-June 2005 ) Mystery Plucked and Burned, 2003 ( Redbud Publishing Co. ) by Sylvia Tomlinson ( Volume 7, Number 2, July-December 2006 ) Pharmacology/Pharmacotoxicology Guidelines for the Appropriate Use of Herbal Medicines, 1 st edition, 1998 (World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific, Manila), ( Volume 5, Number 1, January-June 2004 ) Medicinal Plants in China - A selection of 150 commonly used species (WHO Regional Publications, Western Pacific Series No 2), 1989 (2nd impression 1997) (World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific, Manila), compiled by The Institute of Chinese Material Medica, China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine( Volume 5, Number 1, January-June 2004 ) [Featured Book] Medicinal Plants in the Republic of Korea - Information on 150 commonly used medicinal plants (WHO Regional Publications - Western Pacific Series No 21) , 1998 (World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific, Manila), compiled by Compiled by Natural Products Research Institute, Seoul National University( Volume 5, Number 1, January-June 2004 ) [Featured Book] Medicinal Plants in the South Pacific - Information on 102 commonly used medicinal plants in the South Pacific (WHO Regional Publications-Western Pacific Series No 19) , 1998 (World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific, Manila), ( Volume 5, Number 1, January-June 2004 ) [Featured Book] Medicinal Plants in Vietnam (WHO Regional Publications - Western Pacific Series No 3) , 1990 (World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific, Manila), ( Volume 5, Number 1, January-June 2004 ) [Featured Book] WHO guidelines on good agricultural and collection practices [GACP] for medicinal plants, 1st edition, 2003 (World Health Organization Avenue Appia 20, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland), ( Volume 5, Number 2, July-December 2004 ) To go to Pharmacology/Pharmacotoxicology Books of a more technical nature, click here . Poisons and poisoners The Young Poisoner's Handbook, 1995, Produced by Sam Taylor, Directed by Benjamin Ross. Music by Rob Lane/Frank Strobel. Studio - Mass Productions, Kinowelt, and Haut et Court (Jointly), ( Volume 8, Number 1, January-June 2007 ) [DVD (99 minutes)] Police Procedures Police Procedural - A writer's guide to the police and how they work (THE HOWDUNIT SERIES) , First edition, 1993, (Writer's Digest Books) by Russell Bintliff ( Volume 2, Number 1, January-June 2001 ) Ripperology The Ultimate Jack the Ripper: An Illustrated Encyclopedia , 2001, (Constable and Robinson Ltd.) by Stewart P. Evans and Keith Skinner ( Volume 3, Number 1, January - June 2002 ) Scene of Crime Crime Scene , 2002, ( Avon Books ) by Larry Ragle, [ Volume 5, Number 2, July-December 2004 (3 MB pdf file)] Scene of the Crime - A writer's guide to crime-scene investigations (THE HOWDUNIT SERIES) , First edition, 1992, ( Writer's Digest Books ) by Anne Wingate, Ph.D. ( Volume 4, Number 1, January-June 2003 ) Sex Nymphomania - A History , 2001, ( W. W. Norton & Company ) by Carol Groneman, ( Volume 8, Number 2, July-December 2007 ) The X-Rated Bible: An Irreverent Survey of Sex in the Scriptures , 2nd Revised edition 1998, ( Feral House ) by Ben Edward Akerley, ( Volume 8, Number 1, January-June 2007 ) Sherlockiana The Moriarty Principle: An Irregular Look at Sherlock Holmes , 1997, (Galde Press Inc.) by Rolf J. Canton ( Volume 2, Number 2, July-December 2001 ) The Pipe Dream Continues: An Irregular Look at Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota , 1998, (Galde Press Inc.) Written and Directed by Rolf J. Canton ( Volume 2, Number 2, July-December 2001 ) [Video Cassette, running time 58 minutes 30 seconds] Sherlock Holmes and the Skull of Death , 2001, (1st Books Library) by Robert E. McClellan ( Volume 2, Number 2, July-December 2001 ) All About GPS: Sherlock Holmes' Guide to the Global Positioning , 2000, (1st Books Library) by Jerry Huang ( Volume 2, Number 2, July-December 2001 ) Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Three Dragons , 2000, (1st Books Library) by Luke S. Fullenkamp ( Volume 2, Number 2, July-December 2001 ) The Science of Sherlock Holmes - From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear, the Real Forensics Behind the Great Detective's Greatest Cases (2001), ( John Wiley & Sons Inc ) by E.J. Wagner ( Volume 7, Number 1, January - June 2006 ) Terrorism/Counterterrorism America's Achilles' Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack (BCSIA Studies in International Security), by Richard A. Falkenrath, Robert D. Newman, Bradley A. Thayer , The MIT Press, ( Volume 8, Number 1, January - June 2007 ) Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons, [A book from the "BCSIA (Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs) Studies in International Security" series] , edited by Jonathan B. Tucker, The MIT Press, ( Volume 5, Number 2, July - December 2004 ) [Featured Book] To go to related books of a more technical nature, click here . Toxicology Death in the Pot: The Impact of Food Poisoning on History , 2007, (Prometheus Books) by Morton Satin ( Volume 8, Number 2, July - December 2007 ) Molecules of Murder: Criminal Molecules and Classic Cases , 2008, (The Royal Society of Chemistry) by John Emsley, ( Volume 11, Number 2, July-December 2010 ) The Elements of Murder - A History of Poison , 2005, (Oxford University Press) by John Emsley, ( Volume 6, Number 2, July-December 2005 ) The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York , 2010, (The Penguin Press) by Deborah Blum, ( Volume 12, Number 2, July-December 2011 ) The Poison Quiz Book: Pearls of Wisdom , 2001, (Boston Medical Publishing) by John Harris Trestrail, III, RPh, FAACT, DABAT ( Volume 3, Number 1, January - June 2002 ) To go to related books of a more technical nature, click here . True Crime Cracking Cases - The Science of Solving Crimes, (2002), ( Prometheus Books ) by Dr. Henry C. Lee with Thomas W.O'neil ( Volume 6, Number 1, January - June 2005 ) Cracking More Cases, The Forensic Science of Solving Crimes , (2004), ( Prometheus Books ) by Dr. Henry C. Lee with Thomas W.O'neil ( Volume 6, Number 1, January - June 2005 ) Childhood Shadows: The Hidden Story of the Black Dahlia Murder, (2000), (1st Books Library) by Mary Pacios ( Volume 2, Number 2, July-December 2001 ) Mortal Evidence: The Forensics behind Nine Shocking Cases, (2003), ( Prometheus Books ) by Cyril Wecht, M.D., J.D., and Greg Saitz, with Mark Curriden ( Volume 5, Number 2, July - December 2004 ) The Man in the iron mask (Celebrated Crimes series) , (Rogue Publishing), by Alexandre Dumas ( Volume 7, Number 1, January - June 2006 ) [E-Book, available as a pdf file] [Featured Book] The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities, From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums, (2007), ( Public Affairs ) by Peter Watson and Cecelia Todeschini ( Volume 8, Number 2, July - December 2007 ) To go to books on Crime fiction, please visit our sister publication by clicking here .

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Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1998 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS POISONING BY CADMIUM -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the dead body of a young girl today. What happened to her? Please tell me." "Good morning Tarun. The name of this young girl is Kanta, and she died this morning in the hospital. She was a chemistry student and about 19 year old. Yesterday night she took part in a party thrown by Sohan who was her classmate. Three other students also participated in that party, two of whom were girls. So in all there were 2 boys and 3 girls, including Kanta and Sohan. All are chemistry students studying in a local college. At the party, Kanta took some food and some soft drinks. Soon after that she complained of a choking sensation around her throat and excessive salivation. She also had a feeling of nausea and vomited several times, and had diarrhoea too. She was rushed to a local hospital, where the doctors diagnosed that she was suffering from gastroenteritis, a kind of infection of the stomach and intestines which gives rise to these symptoms. It was thought that she had some form of food poisoning. But what was surprising was that the other four students did not have any problem whatsoever. Had they suffered the same symptoms, the death could have been passed off as a natural death due to gastroenteritis, but since all the others are well off, the police has suspected some foul play and has brought her dead body before me. Of course they have requested me to conduct a post-mortem on the dead body and tell them about the cause of death." "Oh, so how are you going to find out the cause? Do you think that there has been some foul play somewhere?" "Well, anything is possible in this world. I contacted the doctors in the local hospital where she was taken, and also went through her hospital case sheet. What caught my attention was that Kanta was suffering from severe aches and pains too. And these aches and pains started only after she drank the soft drinks, and ate the foodstuff at Sohan’s house. I do not know of any form of gastroenteritis where you also get generalized aches and pains...." "So what are you trying to arrive at?" "Tarun, I have made a detailed study of the symptoms which Kanta displayed, and a very unusual poison is coming to my mind as the possible cause of her death" "Doctor, what is that poison? Please tell me. I am getting curious." "Tarun it is a very unusual poison- cadmium chloride." "Cadmium Chloride? Never heard of its being used as a poison. Is it a poison really? "Yeah it is indeed a very deadly poison. If fact its very discovery is related to its toxicity..." "Really? How? Seems like we are in for another of your interesting historical stories." "Yeah, it does make an interesting story. The story starts in the early part of 19th century. Zinc oxide was then widely used for a number of ailments, and was freely available at chemists shops. To ensure that the medicines were not adulterated, the Government of Germany in those days employed district physicians. Their job was to go to chemists’ shops and find out if the medicines they sold were spurious or not. One such physician named Rolow – who was incharge of the province of Hannover - got the reports of toxicity from zinc oxide being sold at local chemists’ shops. From the reports of symptoms, he suspected arsenic poisoning (for details of arsenic poisoning, see Science Reporter February 1997 issue). So he went around from shop to shop, collected zinc oxide samples from the shops and put them to test. One of the standard methods in those times to test for various oxides was to treat them with hydrogen sulphide. This caused various metallic sulphides to form which could be detected from their color. When Rolow treated zinc oxide with hydrogen sulphide, he got a yellow precipitate strongly resembling the sulphide of arsenic. From this he concluded that the samples of zinc oxide were indeed impure- they contained arsenic oxide as well." "So did they really contain arsenic?" "Wait. The local supply of zinc oxide was made by one influential businessman- a man called Hermann. He was also a chemist by profession. He got his own samples tested for arsenic in his own way. He employed all chemical tests known for arsenic at that time and came to the conclusion that his samples did not contain arsenic at all. On the strength of his analysis, he applied to the local authorities, requesting them to restart his supply of zinc oxide to the local chemists’s shops." "So how was this controversy resolved?" "To resolve the controversy, the authorities of Hannover employed the services of a very reputed chemist of those times- Professor Friedrich Stromeyer (1776-1835), head of the department of chemistry at the Göttingen University. The added advantage was that he also held the post of Inspector General of all Hanover chemists’ shops. Hermann’s factory was situated in a place called Schönebek. Samples of zinc oxide were sent from Schönebek to Göttingen where Professor Stromeyer got to work. Quite intelligently first he investigated how zinc oxide was being produced. He found that chemists in Schönebek calcined zinc carbonate to obtain zinc oxide. So he started from zinc carbonate instead, and heated it strongly. To his surprise he got a yellow colored compound. He was expecting zinc oxide, which as we all know is a white colored compound. He asked both Hermann and Rolow to explain that." "Oh, so even the Great Stromeyer was confused, is it?" "Not in the least. On the contrary he gave enough opportunities to both sides to explain their stand before he got to work. Interestingly both sides gave wrong explanations. Hermann explained away the color by saying that the samples contained iron, although it is not known how that explained the yellow color. For him it was better to explain by resorting to something like iron which is a natural constituent of the body, and can do no harm to anyone. Well, to be sure, even iron can be poisonous, but for that it should be administered in very large quantities. Rolow, who was intent on getting Hermann’s factory closed, explained away the color by contending that the samples contained arsenic. After listening to both sides, Stromeyer got to work and discovered a hitherto unknown metal in the samples. It looked very much like zinc, but could easily be separated from it by means of hydrogen sulphide. So much did it look like zinc that Professor Stromeyer preferred to call it Cadmium- after cadmea, a word which in Greek means zinc ore." "Oh, very interesting indeed!" "In fact how the zinc ore came to be called cadmea is in itself an interesting story. Legend has it that a Phoenician Cadmus was the first to have found a zinc rock and to notice that it gave a golden tinge to copper during smelting. It is from his name that zinc ore finally came to be called Cadmea. You may be surprised to know that naming chemical elements was a big fashion in 19th century Europe, becuase new and new elements were discovered almost every year, and it became fashionable to name elements after various Gods, legends, scientists, countries, even rivers. Element Rhenium for instance is named after the German river Rhine! In 1818, when Professor Stromeyer published his paper on Cadmium, many people came forward with the suggestion that they had already discovered that element first and even suggested names for this new element. German chemist Kersten, for instance, suggested that the new element be called melinium (yellow) after the color of its sulphide. Two other scientists Gilbert and John proposed two more names. One of them suggested that it be called junonium (after the newly discovered asteriod Juno in 1804) and the other suggested that it be called klaprothium, after the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743-1817), but ultimately the name given by Stromeyer stuck." "Oh, this is most interesting. Tell me some other important facts about Cadmium." "Tarun, Cadmium is used in a wide range of industrial processes, which include electroplating to impart corrosive resistance to ironware. Cadmium compounds are used as pigments, as components of batteries and photographic materials and cadmium is also used as a plastic stabilizer. Cadmium sulphate in a 1% solution, is a constituent of a shampoo used in the treatment of seborrheic dermatitis and dandruff." "So we were talking about the Cadmium poisoning. How can it occur?" "Cadmium poisoning can occur accidentally in a variety of circumstances. In the 1940s, it was usual for people to have their kitchenware electroplated with cadmium, as this makes them corrosion resistant. In the very beginning, Cadmium coating was deposited by immersing the metallic ware in molten cadmium...." "Sorry to interrupt you doctor, but melting cadmium must be quite a task. That too for just coating metals. Wasn’t it a very costly process?" "No, not at all. Cadmium melts very easily. It’s melting point is only 3210 C. In fact, its such a low melting point makes it a very suitable candidate for making low melting alloys. Among them Wood’s alloy containing 12.5 percent of cadmium was developed as far back as 1860 by a British Engineer Wood. These low melting alloys are used as solders and as the material for delicate and intricate castings, as well as in automatic fire-warning systems. Okay so I was telling you about the cadmium coating on kitchen ware. Later on, the coating was done with the help of electroplating. Unfortunately organic acids, many of which are used in day-to-day cooking such as vinegar (acetic acid), imli (tartaric acid) and lemon (citric acid) can dissolve cadmium from the thin electroplated layer, and this caused several cases of poisoning. In one accident which involved three adults and five children, the source of poison was "lemonade" ices prepared with citric acid in metal trays of a reconditioned refrigerator. All were sick and four also had diarrhoea, but recovery was complete within 24 hours. The citric acid solution contained 279 ppm (parts per million) of cadmium and it was estimated that each ice contained about 3 mg of cadmium. The ill effects resemble those of zinc poisoning. It is thought that the salts formed by organic acids are converted into cadmium chloride by HCl in the stomach. When the cause of these poisonings was discovered, the practice of cadmium electroplating was abandoned. But by no means are the incidences of accidental poisoning by cadmium ceased altogether. As late as in 1981, a case of accidental cadmium was reported. In this case, the victims inhaled fumes from a plated shelf of a refrigerator, used as an improvised barbeque grill!" "Oh, that is certainly most extraordinary!" "Yeah, that is right Tarun. Accidental cases of cadmium poisoning can also occur from cadmium fumes and dust. Cases have been reported where the poisoning occurred in some women who were using a cadmium powder to clean silver. These cases occur especially if the cleaning was being done in small, ill-ventilated rooms. It is interesting to keep in mind that inhaled cadmium is about six times more dangerous than ingested cadmium. Thus poisoning from inhaled cadmium fumes is much more dangerous. We have seen that in earlier times, metals were frequently electroplated with cadmium. Interestingly this practice has given rise to some cases of "delayed" poisoning now. Scrap metal from those times – if cut, dismantled, or recycled today, especially if with the help of oxyacetylene torches – can give rise to dangerous levels of cadmium fumes. Cases of fatal poisoning in such circumstances have been reported. It is important to realize that since cadmium was once used to electroplate metals, and there may be several such metallic objects in an average house, a housefire can give rise to cadmium fumes, and firemen must wear protective masks. There was a time when carbon tetrachloride was used as a fire extinguisher. But when carbon tetrachloride came in contact with hot metal surfaces, it gave rise to the poisonous phosgene (see Science Reporter Jan 1998 "Death by Phosgene"). Cadmium fumes, if produced during these fires were often confused with phosgene gas, and this caused serious blunders in treatment of such poisoned victims. But now since the use of carbon tetrachloride in fire extinguishers has been banned, chances of such graves mistakes are very remote." "This is very interesting. Have cases of poisoning occurred in such circumstances?" "Oh yes. In one interesting incident which occurred in 1956 in a chemistry laboratory in Leeds (Great Britain), some cadmium propionate was being dried in an oven for experimental purposes. This is a safe procedure as long as the temperature does not rise above 1000 C; above this temperature fumes of cadmium oxide and propionic acid are produced. Because of an inadvertent mistake, although the temperature of the oven reached 1600 C, it was read only as 600 C. Because of this, an explosion occurred, followed by a fire, and thick red fumes were seen to be coming out of that room. Four of the firemen, who entered the room to put out the fire inhaled those fumes, and one died after 6 days. On postmortem examination, significant amounts of cadmium were found in his internal body organs." "Oh, I see. Is cadmium found in some of our day to day products too?" "Tarun, Cadmium is found in significant amounts in unfiltered cigarettes, and this can be a cause of poisoning. Twenty unfiltered cigarettes a day can yield 6 mg of cadmium, of which the smoker may retain upto 65%." "Doctor you said that Kanta was suffering from muscle aches and pains and from this you deduced that she might be suffering from Cadmium poisoning. Can you elaborate on that?" "Oh, sure. This symptom is so prominent in Cadmium poisoning that it has even given a name to a disease caused by Cadmium. Let me elaborate. An outbreak of food poisoning due to Cadmium occurred in Japan in 1945. The syndrome has been called itai-itai disease, which when translated in English means ouch-ouch disease. The syndrome has been so called because it caused severe pain in the back and legs (which forced the victims to cry "ouch-ouch" so to say!). In more serious cases, there was decalcification and fracture of bone. Dislocations were also found to occur. For some strange reason, the complete syndrome was restricted to post-menopausal women, who had had several pregnancies. On investigation it was found that a local mine – the Kamioke zinc-cadmium-lead mine – released its effluents (containing cadmium) in the local Jintzu river. The water from this river was used both for drinking as well as for irrigating the local paddy fields. Thus cadmium found its way in the rice grown there as well. Cadmium ingested through intake of water as well as rice caused chronic cadmium poisoning, which was responsible for this syndrome. For the osteomalacia, undernutrition (common in post-war Japan) was also thought to be a factor." "So now it is becoming clear that somebody mixed Cadmium salts in Kanta’s drinks. Tell me has Cadmium been used for murder before?" "Not many times, but I do remember a case which was even reported in The Yorkshire Post of July 23, 1981. In this case two youths aged 14 and 15 administered cadmium chloride mixed in an orange drink to eleven children. They suffered from sickness and blurred vision, but fortunately no one died. The younger boy had strong political views and intended to poison his opponents. They had stolen the chemical from the Humberside Education Authority." "Doctor, you have already told me the symptoms one experiences when one ingests the poison. What happens when one inhales Cadmium fumes?" "Tarun, the initial symptoms and signs are sensation of constriction around the throat, a nasty taste in the mouth, irritation of the upper respiratory tract manifested by troublesome cough and redenning of the eyes. After a latent period of about one to two hours grave respiratory symptoms develop rapidly. Signs of pulmonary oedema (a technical name of a condition in which lungs are water logged) are also seen. The prominent respiratory symptoms are difficulty in respiration, pain in the chest, malaise, shivering and profuse sweating." "Has Cadmium been administered in some other way also?" "Tarun, I know of an interesting case of poisoning by intravenous injection which occurred in Japan. The patient had to be given an injection of calcium bromide, but by a rare accident, an injection of cadmium chloride was given. I may tell you that when Cadmium is given as a poison, the person usually dies in 24 hours, although death may be delayed for 7 to 14 days. If death occurs within 24 hours, the cause of death is shock due to loss of fluids. If the death is delayed, the cause is likely to be acute kidney failure or cardiopulmonary depression (depression of heart and lungs)." "Doctor, you have certainly made most interesting conclusions. Now how are you going to conclusively prove that Kanta was given Cadmium?" "Tarun, I have taken out Kanta’s internal organs, and have tested them for Cadmium. They have all given positive tests for Cadmium. Since it is not a normal body constitutent, it is clear that Cadmium has been given to her by someone. Following this I told police the whole story, and they investigated the death further. But this time they had murder in their minds, so they investigated more deeply. They found out that Sohan had been spurned in love by Kanta, and he wanted to take revenge. He stole some Cadmium Chloride from the chemistry lab, and then invited Kanta to his house. Although Kanta had spurned his love offer, she did not say no to his party as she wanted to continue a clean friendship with him. Moreover he told her that some other friends were coming over too. So there was nothing to be afraid of. When she and other friends arrived at Sohan’s house, he offered them cold drinks, and in the cold drink of Kanta, he mixed Cadmium Chloride. He probably chose this poison as this is such an unusual poison, and he thought that he could get away with that. But he didn’t know that forensic science can catch even the most intelligent of criminals. So even all his knowledge of chemistry could not come to his rescue." "Oh, how very clever of you doctor. If you had not made such an intelligent and logical deduction, Sohan could be roaming in free world today. Criminals like him are very dangerous and should be put behind bars. This was a most interesting discussion. Tell me what are you going to tell me the next time?" "Tarun, next time, I would tell you about a very interesting poison- Aluminium Phosphide. "

Main page > Vol-15 No-1 > Book001 LinkedIn WhatsApp X (Twitter) Facebook Copy link Anil Aggrawal's Book Review Journal Volume-1, Number-1 ( July - December ) Book Review (Technical Section) Basic Sciences as applied to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology By Anil Aggrawal A forensic masterclass in basic sciences for postgraduates. The current book by the Author is an attempt- novel and unique, in the sense that the effort is inspired by the Indian post-graduate curriculum designed by the erstwhile Medical Council of India (known as National Medical Commission now) for M.D. course in the discipline of Forensic Medicine, more specifically the Paper-I of the Theory examination. The import of the title “Basic Sciences as Applied to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology” is very wide in scope and pertains to all the relevant anatomy, biochemical and physiologic principles, etc which is the basis of understanding the morbid anatomy and application of those to better understand the core Forensic Pathology. The book is an attempt to provide a one stop solution to the postgraduates in the discipline who earlier had to scroll through voluminous texts of Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, etc to derive examination oriented content for better presentation in the examinations. Although the relevant basic sciences applicable to particular topics of interest in Forensic Medicine have already been provided by the Author in his earlier books viz. Textbook of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, Injuries- Forensic and Medico Legal Aspects and Clinical and Forensic Toxicology, the present book goes several leaps ahead to explain most commonly asked topics from the entire ream of basic sciences which are some of the emerging domains e.g. stem cells, immunohistochemistry and molecular pathology- to name a few. Yet, the book remains connected to the very soul of Forensic Medicine, Traumatology and Toxicology by referring back to prior cited texts and thus avoiding repetition and maintaining chronology stimulating the reader and allowing for both horizontal and vertical integration, which is also the essence of Competency Based Medical Education Curriculum. The text is amply studded with memory aids and some of the handmade diagrams by the Author- one of particular note is memory aid designed for remembering cranial nerves on Page No 18, which makes the anatomical orientation of the various cranial nerves with respect to each other as well as vastly simplifies the topographic anatomy. Not to suffice, the text contains numerous demonstration videos which are a rarity in the existing literature and help the reader in grasping the basic concept e.g. experimental demonstration of the law of Laplace given on page no 51, which helps in conceptual understanding of the abstract terminologies. General Pathology given in Chapter 4 is a welcome inclusion as it helps in understanding the basic pathologic principles which are the basis for understanding and interpreting Forensic Pathology. A clear differentiation between Septicemia, sepsis and septic shock, based on updated scientific criteria is heartening to see on Page no’s 96 and 97. Another exciting feature of the book is the innumerable case studies which make the topics both entertaining to read and further act as reminders how one particular development has a legal bearing or implication. Chapter 6 discusses general pharmacological principles which have importance in the field of clinical and forensic toxicology. Questionnaire towards the end of each topic are though provoking e.g. anti-neoplastic drug for homicide brings one to an old case of murder by means of Lomustine, which is a drug employed for brain tumor treatment but the aplastic anemia and multi-organ failure which are the consequence of it’s overdose resemble natural death. This is significant for even clinicians/ emergency physicians who treat a significant number of accidental drug over-dosages to be mindful of the drug history- both prescriptions as well as Over-the-counter (OTC). The chapter on “Radiology as Applied to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology” is very thoughtfully designed considering the advent of Virtual Autopsy at AIIMS in 2021 by the Government of India after the Virtopsy project under Prof Richard Dirnhofer of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Bern, Switzerland. The radiographs important from the point of view of a forensic practitioner have been given along with comparative diagrammatic representation for simplification purposes. Readers shall be in a better position to interpret the basic postmortem radiographic findings if and when needed. National Board of Examinations (NBE) has been asking one question every year in Paper I of Forensic Medicine DNB Theory Examination based upon biostatistics accounting for 10 marks. The inclusion of statistics as applied to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology in Chapter 8 of the book is a welcome step to strengthen the students with the most essential and desired topics e.g. Null Hypothesis, P-value, Z score, etc. which could be asked. The next chapter on Research Methodology is educative for the thesis going and any researcher to understand the various study designs and how to calculate the sample size for a proposed research study. Types of citations and referencing systems have also been elaborated upon and the various indexing systems have been deliberated upon. This is very much needed for a novice researcher as imprecise understanding of these may create impediments in the growth and advancement of the latter. The last few chapters focus on infrastructural requirements related to setting up of a Museum and Analytical Toxicological Laboratory in the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology. Basic chemistry has been given at the end to simplify the understanding of subtlety and nuances of Forensic Toxicology. Few sample questions have been provided in the appendix which could further be enhanced through the addition of previous year questions from various universities. Tentative thesis/ research topics given in the appendix give important food for thought to the examinees and the research oriented ones. Overall the book is a novel and fresh initiative in an unexplored genre/ theme which will bode well to the lot to whom it is intended to cover- postgraduates in Forensic Medicine & Toxicology and the faculty. - Dr. Varun Modgil He is currently working as Assistant Professor at Dayanand Medical College & Hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab. He was Senior Resident at Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh. He deposed as an expert witness at various courts in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. He has completed his D.N.B. in Forensic Medicine and also published articles in various National & International journals and also delivered guest lectures in National Conferences on Forensic Medicine. He can be contacted at dr_varun_modgil@dmch.edu ,

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-11 WHAT DO THE BONES TELL US ? Two years back, I was called to a village near Alwar to solve a very bizarre case. While some digging was going on for a construction purpose, a laborer unearthed several bones. He immediately ran to his contractor and showed him the bones. The contractor contacted the police and the police in turn contacted me. That is how I came into the picture. While I was going through the police records of the area, I realized that about 2 years back a 22‑year‑old boy was reported missing from that village. His name was Suresh. There was a widely held rumor that Suresh had run away from his house in search of a proper job. It was common view that he was quite dissatisfied with his parents and wanted to live away in an independent manner. So, when, one day Suresh was not found in his home, everyone in the village assumed that he had run away from home. Suresh's parents however were not ready to admit that he had run away. They constantly maintained that he had fallen in the hands of some criminal who had killed him and had buried him somewhere. The real story was deeper than this. Actually, before Suresh's disappearance, nobody could even think about it. Suresh was in love with a local belle Geeta. She was the daughter of a rich money‑lender of the village, Karan Singh. Karan Singh had repeatedly warned Suresh not to meet Geeta but, since his own daughter was secretly in love with Suresh, he couldn't stop their meetings. Once he had openly sworn to kill them both, if they met again. About a month after Suresh's disappearance, Geeta was found missing from her house too. The story took a new turn now. Was Geeta secretly kidnapped by Suresh? Were Suresh and Geeta separately kidnapped and murdered by Karan Singh's goons? Or, was their disappearance totally unrelated to each other? Nobody knew what indeed had happened. To be sure, Geeta was extremely beautiful and she could very well have fallen in the hands of a rapist and murderer. But, how to know what had really happened. Nobody even was sure that Suresh and Geeta had been killed. When I examined the bones preliminary, I found two skulls among the bones, so it was sure that I was dealing with a least two dead people. But, I had to prove that out of them one skull was a male and the other, a female. Only then, could we prove that Karan Singh had indeed got Suresh and Geeta murdered. Not only that I had to prove that out of other bones too, half belonged to a male and half to a female. This was challenging task, but I decided to undertake it. How do we find out sex of the victim from the bones? Many times I have been asked this question by the police officers and public. In this case, I am going to provide you with my well kept secrets. Many sexual differences are found in the skull. Look at fig.1, carefully, which shows two skulls‑ one of a male and the other a female one. The upper one is male skull, while the lower one is a female. There are several ways in which we can say that a given skull is male or a female. One is to look at the bone just beneath the eyebrows. This is technically known as SUPRA ORBITAL RIDGE . It is much more prominent in a male skull than in a female skull (shown in the figure by arrows). Further when you see the angulation between the forehead and the nose, you find that in a male skull, this angulation is very prominent. The bone behind the ear is known as MASTOID PROCESS . This is larger, round and blunt in a male skull and smaller, smoother and pointed in a female skull. This point is also shown in the figure by arrows. There are several other differences in the skulls, but these three are very prominent in the given diagram and I generally infer the sex from these 3 points. Let us now come to the jaw technically known as MANDIBLE. The jaw bone above is of male, while the jaw bone below is of female. The jaw bone is squarer in the males while it is much more rounded in the females Fig 2. Hip bone shows the maximum differences between the two sexes. There are two hip bones in each individual. If you stand with your arms akimbo, your palms are over the hip bones. These hip bones unite with the back bone(SACRUM) and from a circular jug like structure known technically as PELVIS. Nature has made pelvis much wider in women because , women have to bear children. The babies, while they are within the bomb, remain enclosed by pelvis. If nature had made pelvis narrower in females, babies would find it very difficult to come out of womb at the time of delivery. It is the wide pelvis, which gives the females their characteristic waddling gait. We make use of this fact in determining, whether a given hip bone is of a male or of a female. Look at Fig.3 , it shows 2 hip bones. The upper one is a male hip bone, while the lower one is a female. The angulation of the bone is more in male as shown in the diagram. There is a notch in the hip bone which is known as GREATER SCIATIC NOTCH . This notch is shown in Fig 4 . This notch is more acute in the male and much wider in the female(as shown). The backbone or sacrum is shown in Fig 5 . Sacrum is narrower in the male. You can guess that the sacrum on the left is a male one. Feeling like a detective already? Well, let's go on. There are differences in arm bones and thigh bones. The rounded projection, which you are seeing fits into the shoulder. This rounded projection is noticeably larger in the male. Yes, you are right; the bon e on the left is a male one. Finally look at fig 7 , it shows the thigh bones. The lower position fits into the knee joint. If we stand, the thigh bone erect on the table, then the male thigh bone known technically as FEMUR , makes a greater angulation than the female thigh bone. In the given figure, the bone on the left shows an angle of 80 0 and the bone on the right shows an angle of 76 0 , so obviously the left bone belongs to a male. Using these criteria, I could prove that there were in fact two sets of bones‑ one belonging to a male and the other to female. Armed with this knowledge, police raided the house of Karan Singh and took him into custody for interrogation, In the beginning he denied of knowing anything, but later broke under pressure. He admitted to having killed both of them when he realized that Geeta had becomes pregnant. The court gave him rigorous imprisonment for life. By reading this account you must yourself be feeling like a detective already. If you like, you may preserve these issues of 'Crime & Detective'. Who knows, one day you might turn out to be a great detective and help the police.

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-32 MAKING WILL UNDER A HYPNOTIC TRANCE I encountered one of the most astounding cases of my life in March 1995. The facts of the case are quite interesting. Rama Devi was a 63 year old woman, who had inherited a good fortune after the death of her husband Mange Ram. Mange Ram worked as a share broker and had earned well during his life. Rama Devi did not understand the share business at all. She had studied only upto higher secondary class and could thus be called a semi-literate person. She could read simple texts like Ramayana and Mahabharata. This was all she ever needed to read anyway. She could also read and write letters in simple English. She was a good natured, religious minded, modest woman who lived a simple life. For a 63 year old individual she was maintaining reasonably good health. Her only trouble was a constant nagging backache. She had seen many doctors for her trouble, and even some sadhus and fakirs, but none had been able to cure her. She was known to have said on several occasions that the backache was giving her a great problem, and she was prepared to go to any length to have it permanently cured. Rama Devi had a son Ramesh and a daughter Rani. Ramesh was a 24 year old bright boy, who was struggling to set up his own business. Rama Devi was helping him financially, and there was every indication that with the passage of time, he would settle down decently. He was a hard working boy, who was putting his mother's money to good use. Rani, a 34 year old lady was married to one Surendra Mohan who was a 43 year old man. He did odd jobs for a living. His income was erratic and often he didn't earn well enough to even feed his family properly. His mother-in-law Rama Devi often offered to help him financially to set up some good business, but he never showed any interest. In fact he had no interest in any work whatsoever. He just wanted to relax and have money without working for it. He had some interest in tantra and had learnt this art from some sadhus with whom he spent much of his time. Nobody knew how much tantra he actually knew, but it was well-known that he could hypnotise a person to some extent. Rama Devi had inherited a large estate. Nobody knew how much she actually owned exactly, but some rough estimates suggested that she might have owned cash and property worth 50 crores. Because of Surendra Mohan's erratic behavior she was not very happy with him, and there were ample indications that she was not going to leave him much after her death. She was going to finalize her will shortly, and the whole household was anxious about it. On 20th March 1995, Rama Devi was found dead in her bed under mysterious circumstances. There were some nail marks on her throat, and from them, the police concluded that she must have been murdered. An autopsy (conducted by me) proved that she had been killed by throttling. The police had no idea who had killed her. For all they knew, some burglar might have broken in the house and killed her. When the will was opened after her death, it caused tremendous upheaval in the household. She had left everything to Surendra Mohan leaving hardly anything for her own son Ramesh. This was a totally unexpected thing, and naturally the two facts- her sudden killing, and her strange will- led many to conclude that there was something black at the bottom. But what... Before going further, I would like to digress a bit, and tell something about hypnotism and its influence on writing. The word hypnosis is derived from the Greek hypnos, god of sleep. In fact the hypnotic state superficially resembles sleep. The art of hypnotism has been practiced since the earliest times, but it was introduced as a therapeutic technique (to cure diseases) by the Austrian doctor Franz Anton Mesmer (1733-1815). About 300 years earlier, the Swiss physician Paracelsus (1490-1541) had insisted that there was a kind of "animal magnetism" in all living beings and that this magnetism was influenced by planets. In the 18th century, the British physician Richard Mead (1673-1754) wrote a book on the influence of the planets on the body. Mesmer read that book and was quite influenced by this idea. He further developed this notion. He thought that there was a Universal Magnetic Fluid which pervaded all human beings, and it was presumably the distribution of this fluid in the body that determined health or disease. Initially he used magnets to draw out this "mesmeric fluid", but later on he modified his ideas. He came to the conclusion that every person possessed magnetic forces, and even these forces could be used to influence the distribution of the magnetic fluid in other persons, thus effecting cures. In effect, he replaced magnets with his own hands. This idea was later brought to perfection by his disciples. Mesmer attempted to put his views into practice in Vienna and in various other towns, but it was not until he came to Paris in 1778 that he achieved success. Here he opened a clinic in which he treated all kinds of diseases by "animal magnetism". The patients were seated around a tub (a baquet) which contained various chemicals and from which protruded iron rods that were applied to the affected potions of the body. The room was darkened, appropriate music was provided, and Mesmer appeared in a lilac robe, passing from one patient to another and touching each one with his hands or his wand. By this means Mesmer was apparently able to treat some cases of hysteria. He was also able to "mesmerize" or hypnotise people by this technique. According to him, a hypnotised person was a "magnetized" person. He became so popular in France that even the French queen Marie Antoinette (1755-93) became his follower! Finally branded as a charlatan by his medical colleagues, Mesmer was forced to leave Paris, and he shortly faded into obscurity. Although Mesmer had done pioneering work in the field of hypnotism, his pupil Marquis de Puysegar finally proved that hypnotism was equally effective without the use of magnets, wires, and tubs of water; it could equally easily be done by the use of hands. It was in 1842, that James Braid of Manchester discovered that a hypnotic trance could be induced by gazing at a bright object, and it was he who first suggested the term "hypnotism". Before this time, the word "mesmerism" was used. Despite their initial success, Mesmer and his disciples gradually faded from the scene. However, their methods and results were the center of controversy in scientific circles for many years; in fact, mesmerism in the early part of the nineteenth century was a great source of heated discussion. This discussion eventually led to a revival of interest in the hypnotic phenomenon. Hypnosis is induced by having the subject fixate on a small shiny object while suggesting that his or her eyes are growing heavy and that he or she is relaxing into drowsiness and is finally asleep, although the operator is careful to inform the subject that he or she will remain alert to the suggestions and commands which will be given. As the subject enters the hypnotic trance, he or she may appear to be in a sleeplike state in which responsiveness to surroundings is reduced. The eyes may close, breathing slows down, and he will ordinarily not engage in activities until commanded to do so by the hypnotist. However, recent research has shown that the subject can remain alert while under hypnosis and that commanding or authoritative statements to the effect that he is going to sleep are not necessary to the induction of the trance. Studies of the electroencephalograms (EEG) or the "brain waves" of hypnotized subjects reveal that they resemble those of waking individuals rather than those who are asleep. The subject is awake but is in a state of heightened suggestibility. This means that the hypnotized person is in an uncritical attitude and can be made to experience delusions, hallucinations, anesthesia (operations under hypnosis are well-known), pain and other similar sensations. He may also be made to obey your commands. Normally a person may not obey you, but under a state of hypnosis he is almost sure to obey you. He may be made to enact unusual roles-crawling about on all fours, barking like a dog, crowing like a rooster-that he would ordinarily find uncongenial to his normal waking state. The subject's heightened state of suggestibility and uncritical attitude do not, however, mean that criminal or immoral behavior will be carried out at the command of the hypnotist. Subjects given such commands usually awaken or fail to carry them out. Thus if someone hypnotises a person, and asks him to commit some murder, chances are that the hypnotised person would not obey him. However there is no guarantee that a subject might not perform an immoral or illegal act under hypnotism. One of the most striking phenomena of hypnosis is the posthypnotic suggestion. This can be demonstrated by suggestions to the subject that he will carry out an activity at a prearranged signal after he has been awakened from the trance. The subject will have no memory of having been given such a suggestion. For example, a student subject might be instructed to arise in the middle of a lecture and go and open a window upon seeing the hypnotist (also the course instructor) take a handkerchief from his pocket. Many subjects will carry out such acts, being unable to explain why they did so other than to say they felt a strong urge to do so in spite of being embarrassed. It has been known for quite some time that hypnotised persons may be asked to write things which they really do not want to. However the writing under hypnotic trance differs substantially from the normal writing. It is this part of hypnotism that concerns us here. Have a look at some of the writings written under the hypnotic trance (Please reproduce fig 1,2,3 on pages 132 and 133 here). Fig 1 i s divided in three parts. The top potion shows writing during a hypnotic trance. The middle portion shows the writing just after the trance was over, and the lower portion shows the writing 20 minutes after the trance. Fig 2 is divided in four portions. The top portion shows writing before the trance; the second portion, during the trance; the third portion, just after the trance and the final portion 20 minutes after the trance. Fig 3 i s also divided on the patten of fig 2. From these figures perhaps you can make out the characteristics of writing during a hypnotic trance. During the hypnotic trance, the angle between the paper and the pen is about 300, while during the normal writing, the angle is about 450. The reduced angle during the hypnotic trance indicates the clumsiness with which the pen is held during the trance. This causes writing to become clumsy. Muscular co-ordination also becomes improper during hypnotism. During trance, the number of errors increase. Many people forget to put the dot over the i, and many forget to make all three limbs of the letters `M' and `W'. Retouching of strokes is a characteristic of normal writing. By retouching the strokes, we normally correct our mistakes. During the hypnotic trance, the subject does not retouch his strokes. This is a characteristic of writing during the trance state. The line quality is poor during the trance state. During the trance, the person is not concerned about the line quality. One reason for this could be that during the trance state, the eyes of the subject are usually closed. In all the three samples shown here, you can see that the line quality is poor during the trance state, but it is good before and after the trance state. Another characteristic of writing during the trance state is the poor state of alignment and of the relative position of letters. This can well be seen in the samples shown here. During trance writing, the curves become flattened and the angles become blunt. Thus a `C' would appear more like a `['. Similarly the angles become blunt. A `V' would appear more like `U' because the lower angle becomes blunt. This feature is seen in all letters which have either a curve or an angle. Terminals of letters become bigger during trance state. The writing seems to end with a "flourish". The size of letters is also quite big during the trance state. Coming back to our case. When the police approached me for the post-mortem of Rama Devi, I asked them what the case was, and they told me the whole story. I immediately suspected that Surendra Mohan must have somehow hypnotised Rama Devi and during the trance stage, must have dictated her to write what he desired. I demanded to see the will. The police officer was initially surprised, but when I told him that the will was the key to the whole mystery, he produced the will before me. I studied the will for two hours, and came to the conclusion that it was indeed written during a trance state. Rama Devi had been killed because later on she would have repudiated her will, knowing that she had been hoodwinked into writing a wrong will. There were several features that gave the will away. First of all the lines were drooping. Secondly, the sizes of the letters were quite big. Thirdly there were terminal flourishes in almost all letters. Furthermore the curves of letters were flattened and the angles were blunted. Additional evidence was that none of i's were dotted and limbs of several m's and w's were missing constantly. I told the police officer that the will had been written under a hypnotic trance. Since it was known that Surendra Mohan was a practitioner of hypnotism, the suspicion naturally fell on him. He had motive to do so also, as otherwise Rama Devi was not going to give him anything. When confronted with these facts, Surendra Mohan admitted his guilt. He revealed the whole story to the police which was like this. On the night of 19th March, Surendra Mohan approached Rama Devi and told her that he could cure her of her constant backache by hypnotism. Although Rama Devi was quite reluctant to interact with Surendra Mohan, but she ultimately gave in, thinking that it could be worth a try, and she gave consent for hypnotising her. It is worth mentioning here that no one can be hypnotised against his will, so it was necessary for Surendra Mohan to obtain her consent somehow. You must have read in Mandrake comics that the hero Mandrake hypnotizes subjects as and when he wants, but in real life, hypnotism under these conditions is absolutely impossible. The consent of the subject is a must. Once Rama Devi gave her consent to be hypnotised, Surendra Mohan hypnotised her, and then instead of doing anything about her pain, brought out a paper and pen, and asked her to write all property in his name. He also arranged for two of his goons to put their signatures on the will as witnesses. After the will was signed by Rama Devi, Surendra Mohan and his two goons throttled Rama Devi. The court found my scientific evidence admissible, and punished Surendra Mohan with life imprisonment. The court also transferred all the property of Rama Devi to her genuine successor Ramesh. When Ramesh got the property, he came to my office and touched my feet. It was at that time, that I realized how important forensic science can be.

Forensic Jokes, Puns & Tidbits Forensic Jokes 1. On September 2, 1999, Dr. Soni, who had come from Gwalior to take MBBS exams told me this story which he claims to be true. Later it was confirmed by several colleagues of mine, including Dr. Dikshit and Dr. Khanna. (i) Dr. K.K.Mishra was the Principal at the Medical College, Cuttack, when the college was sanctioned a decent sum of money for Post-partum program. Normally forensic medicine departments are so neglected, they never get such fantastic sums. Due to a clerical mistake somewhere along the line, the phrase Post-Partum program got changed to "Post-Mortem Program", and all the money came to the department of Forensic Medicine. The Head of Forensic Medicine department (who was Professor K.K. Mishra himself) was surprised, how the government was so generous in sanctioning such a fantastic amount for such a neglected speciality. Anyway he thanked his stars and started making an entirely new building and purchasing brand new equipment for the department. After the project was almost complete, the mistake came to the notice of someone sitting in the administration, but by that time, almost all the money had been utilized, and the department of forensic medicine had got an entirely new look. Well, who says mistakes are always disastrous. I am waiting for the day when some bright clerk in my college makes the same mistake! (ii) On 25 February, 2000, I received this contribution from Dr SK Sharma, Senior Medical Officer at the General Hospital, Gurgaon (Haryana), who claims it to be a real incident. It has got such an eerie similarity to the above story, that I was forced to put this one alongside it. Here is his contribution verbatim! May I submit my first hand departmental experience I underwent after my postgraduation in forensic medicine from Mualana Azad Medical College, New Delhi. I reported to my directorate for my placement anywhere in the district. I was referred to the concerned clerk. He asked me what did my postgraduation in forensic medicine mean. He wanted this information, so that a proposal for transfer was made commensurate with my newly acquired qualifications. I replied that it was in relation to medicolegal examinations and postmortems. Quite interestingly, the orders I received were to report in the postpartum center in a district. It took many months to be back on the post where my specialization could be used. 2. The following joke was sent on September 9, 1999 by Cyril Thomas, who claims it to be a true incident. ********** MAKING THE JOB EASIER ******** In Westminister,CA, Kevin V.Condon,36, shot himself to death after calling 911 emergency line and pinning a sign to the front door of his home said, "DEAD BODY INSIDE, CALL CORONOR, ATTEMPT SUICIDE." Inside police found a fresh pot of coffe waiting for them and the victim's body lying on several plastic bags carefully spread across his bed. A completed death certificate was on top of his night stand. Police said that Condon, a former mortuary attendent used to pick up corpses from the coroner's office, apparantely wanted to make things easy on the officers and coroner's deputies who would be handling his case. 3. The following joke was sent on September 15, 1999 by Dr. Yasar Bilge of the Forensic Medicine Department of Ankara University Medicine Faculty, Turkey. Two doctors diagnose a different disease for a patient. The patient obviously gets very annoyed. He goes to them and asks,"Both of you have given me a different diagnosis. I demand to know who is right." One of the doctors who had just spent a housemanship in forensic medicine, ponders for a moment and then replies after careful consideration,"Well, we all know that autopsy is the final diagnosis. So we can only be sure, when you die, and we conduct an autopsy on you! So if you want to know the right diagnosis, well! you know what you have got to do!" 4. The following joke was sent on September 22, 1999 by Sudhir Gupta of Fantasy International, Greater Kailash-1, New Delhi, India. The thing that relates it to Forensic Medicine is really quite dubious and dawns upon the reader in the last line. Readers who shun blue jokes may please excuse me. Two men camping in the mountains had spent four days together, and they were getting a little testy. One morning, the first friend says, "You know, we're starting to get on each other's nerves. Why don't we split up today. I'll hike north and spend the day looking around, you hike south and spend the day. Then tonight, we'll have dinner and share our experiences over the campfire." The second friend agrees and hikes south. The first man hikes north. That night over dinner, the first man tells his story. "Today I hiked into a beautiful valley. I followed a stream up into a canyon and ate lunch. Then I swam in a crystal clear mountain lake. As I sat out and dried, I watched deer come and drink from the stream. The wildflowers were filled with butterflies and hawks floated all day overhead. How was your day?" The second friend says, "I went south and ran across a set of railroad tracks. I followed them until I came across a beautiful young woman tied to the tracks. I cut the ropes off, gently lifted her off the tracks, and we had sex in every imaginable way all afternoon. Finally, when I was so tired I could barely move, I came back to camp." "Wow!!" the first guy exclaimed, "Your day was MUCH better than mine. Did you get a blow job, too?" "Nah," says the second friend over his meal, "I couldn't find her head." 5. The following joke was sent on September 24, 1999 by Dr. R.K.Sharma of the Forensic Medicine Department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. This is a good one..... bizarre too! At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, the president, Dr. Don Harper Mills, astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story: On March 23, 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten story building intending to commit suicide.He left a note to that effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been installed just below at the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned. Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended" is still defined as committing suicide. That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below at street level, but that his suicide attempt probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. The room on the ninth floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously, and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window, striking Mr. Opus. When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with the murder charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant. They both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore, the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident, that is, the gun had been accidentally loaded. The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus. Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son was in fact Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window. The son had actually murdered himself, so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide. Very tidy of him. Dr. Sharma informs me that this is a true story from Associated Press, by Kurt Westervelt. 6. The following three short jokes were sent on Wednesday, 22 Dec 1999 by Subhash Niyogi and Dr.Prasenjit Once a reporter asked a famouse forensic scientist,"Sir,How do you feel when somebody dies?" "It's time to work!" replied the scientist with a smile. "What happens if somebody swallows potassium cyanide", asked a student. "Nothing worth happening remains", said the teacher. Here is a hint on how to identify THALLIUM poisoning: When the body of a person becomes stiff like a THALLUS then it's thallium poisoning. 7. The following joke was sent by Moneek Mehra on 23 January 2000 Three dead bodies turn up at the mortuary, all with very big smiles on their faces. A Detective Inspector (DI) is sent and is taken straight to the first body. "This guy was an Englishman, 60, died of heart failure while playing with his grandchildren. Hence the enormous smile Inspector ", says the mortuary chief. The DI nods understandingly and is taken to the second dead man. "This was an American, 25, won 124 million dollars in the Power Ball lottery, spent it all on booze. Died of alcohol poisoning, hence the contended smile." "Nothing unusual here", thinks the DI, and asks to be shown the last body. "Ah," says the chief, "this is the most unusual one, a Sardarji, 30, struck by lightning." "Why is he smiling then?" inquires the Inspector. "Thought he was having his picture taken," replies the chief. 8. The following series of jokes was sent by Mike Duxbury on Friday, the 28 January 2000 Subject: Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyers Journal Date: 14 November 1997 15:05 Recently reported in the Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyers Journal, the following are questions actually asked of witnesses by attorneys during trials and, in certain cases, the responses given by insightful witnesses: 1. "Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?" 2. "The youngest son, the twenty-year old, how old is he?" 3. "Were you present when your picture was taken?" 4. "Were you alone or by yourself?" 5. "Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?" 6. "Did he kill you?" 7. "How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?" 8. "You were there until the time you left, is that true?" 9. "How many times have you committed suicide?" After these nine one-liners, Dr. Duxbury gives us this series of questions and answers 10. Q: "So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?" A: "Yes." Q: "And what were you doing at that time?" 11. Q: "She had three children, right?" A: "Yes." Q: "How many were boys?" A: "None." Q: "Were there any girls?" 12. Q: "You say the stairs went down to the basement?" A: "Yes." Q: "And these stairs, did they go up also?" 13. Q: "Mr. Slatery, you went on a rather elaborate honeymoon, didn't you?" A: "I went to Europe, Sir." Q: "And you took your new wife?" 14. Q: "How was your first marriage terminated?" A: "By death." Q: "And by who's death was it terminated?" 15. Q: "Can you describe the individual?" A: "He was about medium height and had a beard." Q: "Was this a male, or a female?" 16. Q: "Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?" A: "No, this is how I dress when I go to work." 17. Q: "Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?" A: "All my autopsies are performed on dead people." I8. Q: "All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did you go to?" A: "Oral." 19. Q: "Do you recall the time that you examined the body?" A: "The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.." Q: "And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?" A: "No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy." 20. Q: "You were not shot in the fracas?" A: "No, I was shot midway between the fracas and the navel." 21. Q: "Are you qualified to give a urine sample?" A: "I have been since early childhood." 22. Q: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?" A: "No." Q: "Did you check for blood pressure?" A: "No." Q: "Did you check for breathing?" A: "No." Q: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?" A: "No." 0: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?" A: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar." Q: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?" A: "It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere." After tickling us so lustily Dr. Duxbury adds: Hi, My name is Mike Duxbury and I am a Police Surgeon ( Forensic Medical Examiner) in Leicester, England. I couldn't agree more with your observations on having more humour in Forensic Medicine. You might like the above jokes. (They still make me laugh every time I read them!) The last sentence is probably an understatement Dr. Duxbury. Many thanks for such nice jokes. -Dr. Anil Aggrawal 9. The following joke (claimed to be a true story) was sent on May 12, 2000 by Geo & Joyce LeonardThis is a good one..... bizarre too! [Bloomberg News Service] A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but an autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. According to the article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating "this deadly gas." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized. 10. Many people ask me why I chose Forensic Medicine as a career, and I tell them that it is because a forensic man gets the honor of being called when the top doctors have failed!

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Forensic Science Fiction The mystery of the slain General When the phone started ringing incessantly, I was deep asleep, and was dreaming some good things of life. Wearily I tried to rub sleep off my eyes and looked at the clock. It was 2 am. Who could it be? "Hello, is it Dr. Aggrawal?", a faint voice came from the other side. "Yes, who is it?", I asked with a little bit of irritation. "Sir, are you the forensic pathologist working in Maulana Azad Medical College?" "Oh, yes. Come on. Now who are you, and what do you want from me?" "Sir, I have a bad news to give you", he said, ignoring my question completely, "The President of Malibotu has been assassinated, and you are required to attend immediately." Malibotu? Malibotu?? Now where in the world is Malibotu? I started thinking. I had been somewhat of a quizzer in my college days, and at that time reveled in quizzing on such subjects. But age is now telling on my brain, and I really couldn't remember where it was. All I could recollect after some quick thinking was that it was a small principality somewhere in the middle of Africa, probably near Congo. Yes, I got it. It indeed was. Its capital was Rwandanu, and General Oshonga had recently staged a successful coup, replacing the democratically elected President. Oshonga had said that the economy had gone down, and it had become absolutely important for him to stage that coup, in order to take that nation fast forward. To the best of my knowledge all army generals said that after staging a coup. "Are you there doctor?" the same faint voice broke my reverie. "Yeah. But who are you, and where are you calling from? And what am I supposed to do?" "Sir, I am Ngunmah, the first Secretary in the Embassy of Malibotu. Right now I am speaking from the Embassy itself. You are required by our Government to take a flight immediately to our country, and conduct a post-mortem examination on the General. Of course you have to tell the police all you can. It is very urgent. Don't worry about the Government clearances. They have all been taken. Please get ready in an hour. Our man is coming to your residence with the ticket and the necessary papers." Now, it isn't exactly a pleasant exercise visiting a country ruled by the military, but obviously it could not be avoided, because as soon as I hung up, I received a phone call from someone high up in the ministry asking me to do the same. I was told that necessary papers from the Ministry were reaching immediately to my residence, and I was to take the 6.35 am Air India flight to Rwandanu, the capital of Malibotu. My wife wasn't exactly pleased when I told her that she had to pack my luggage in about an hour. We both struggled and when the man with the tickets came to our house, I was reasonably well dressed, and ready with a quickly assembled luggage. I will skip the details, and now tell you straightaway what happened when I reached Rwandanu. All army officers gathered round me, and started telling me the story. The gist of the story was this... General Oshonga was overlooking a routine army parade on 23 March 1996, at about 10 am, when suddenly he dropped down. In the first instance it appeared as if he had had a stroke. On closer examination however, a big gaping hole was seen at his neck, which was bleeding profusely. Obviously someone had tried to assassinate him. His army guard, a man named Bishounga, was standing closeby with a gun. Nobody saw him firing at the General, but since there was no other person with a gun in the vicinity, the suspicion immediately fell upon him. Some army officers immediately pounced upon him, starting hammering him with all their might. In the melee that ensued, somebody took away his gun, and nobody knew where it was. I am saying this, because in my investigation it was very important to have his gun. We all know that all guns leave their tell-tale markings on the bullet. There are the primary markings, which are the characteristic of a particular make, say a Colt or a Smith and Wesson. But what are really important are the secondary markings, which are caused due to idiosyncrasies within a particular gun. Thus two different Colt guns would leave the same primary markings on the bullet, but different secondary markings. Secondary markings can in fact be called the fingerprints of the gun left on the bullet. If you give me a bullet fired from a particular weapon, and give me 100 weapons, I can tell you positively which weapon out of those 100 was the bullet fired from. What I would do to determine this would be to fire a bullet from each of those hundred weapons, recover those bullets, and compare the markings on each of them with the bullet you gave me. The weapon whose markings match exactly is the gun in question. For this we need a special microscope called the comparison microscope, in which we make the comparisons. I wouldn't bother you with any more scientific details, and get on straightway with the story. Well, I received the phone call on 24 March at 2 am, as I already told you in the beginning. I took the 6.35 am plane the same day, and reached Malibotu the same day at 9.30 am local time. Well, the journey lasted almost 6 hours, but since Malibotu - as we all know - is 3 hours behind Indian standard time, it was 9.30 am local time. In other words, I was there in Malibotu, exactly one day after the General was slain. When I conducted the autopsy, I didn't have to exert much on finding the cause of death. The bullet had entered the left side of General's neck, lacerated both the left carotid artery and the left jugular vein, then pierced the trachea, and then had come out from the other side of his neck. The death was clearly due to hemorrhage and shock consequent upon excessive bleeding from the neck vessels. However the most notable feature was that the entrance wound showed tattooing. There was very little blackening, but I could understand that, as modern ammunitions don't have black powder. They mostly work on the so-called "smokeless powders" which comprise of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. Tattooing around the wound, in cases of hits by hand weapons such as revolvers, means that the gun was fired from a fairly close range. And that put a very strong finger of suspicion on Bishounga. A word about burning, blackening and singeing before we move on. When any gun is fired, lots of gases come out along with the bullet. This is because gun powder in the cartridge is burnt, with resultant formation of gases which actually push the bullet forwards. Some gun powder gets converted to smoke, while some remains unburnt. The smoke travels for some distance along with the bullet, and then it tends to dissipate away. Unburnt powder travels somewhat longer but ultimately it too dissipates. If the victim's body happens to be within these distances, the smoke and the unburnt powder gets deposited on the victim's skin around the bullet entry wound, causing blackening and tattooing respectively. The flame from the gun also leaps forwards from the muzzle, but for really a very small distance. If the victim's body happens to be within this distance, there would be burning too around the bullet hole. The whole subject is very complex, and I wouldn't bother you with details. Suffice it to say, that in cases of pistols and revolvers, burning is seen if the victim was within 3 inches of the gun, blackening, if he was within 6 inches, and tattooing, if he was anywhere around 12 to 18 inches from the gun. To take an example, if I see only tattooing, and no burning and blackening, I can say that the gun was fired more than 6 inches but less than 18 inches from the victim. And similarly by looking at the appearances, I can opine on any distance. Bishounga was obviously in trouble because I had seen tattooing on the General's body. I could not see any signs of burning or blackening. This means that the gun was within about 12 to 18 inches from the General, and who else could fire a gun from such close quarters except Bishounga. I talked to Bishounga for some time. He was very terrified, and told me he was innocent. He said he really did not know what had happened. According to the version given by him, the General suddenly fell down, and he was as surprised as any other. He however gave me a very important piece of information that there was a conspiracy to finish the General among some army higher-ups. After talking to him for some time, I was convinced that Bishounga had not fired the gun. You may ask, how could I be so sure. Well, I am a serious student of a new branch of forensics called forensic psychology, in which we can talk to a suspect and can know a lot about him. I was very sure after talking to him, that Bishounga was being framed in a very sinister plot. But if he hadn't fired the shot, who had? And how could I explain the million dollar question - the tattooing? Gradually I realized, that my whole exercise of proving Bishounga innocent boiled down to just one thing: to explain the tattooing. If for instance, I had not seen any tattooing, I could have confidently said that the wound was caused by some gun fired from a distant range, but the very obvious tattooing was preventing me from saying that. And that was putting Bishounga in a very tight spot indeed. I went to the place where the General was killed and looked around. There were some tall buildings around 200 yards from where the General was standing. I counted the floors. Most of them had more than 10 floors. It was very easy for some one to take a position there and kill the General with a rifle. Had I got the bullet or Bishounga's gun, I could have solved the problem easily, but neither the bullet, nor the gun was available. The gun as already mentioned had been taken away by someone, and was untraceable now. Similarly, the bullet had pierced the General's neck through and through, had probably fallen on the ground and had got lost in the melee. Now the only lead I had was the appearance of the wound. After the autopsy there was a lot of pressure from the Army higher-ups to dispose off the body of the General after doing the last rites. But I was not sure if that would be the right thing to do. Perhaps the General's body had more clues than I had been able to detect. And perhaps I might have to have a look at it later. So I advised them to keep the body in the cold room for another day. There was no way- I told myself- that a gun firing from such a great distance could cause tattooing, and yet my mind was saying that Bishounga was innocent. How could I prove that? I slept a very disturbed sleep in my hotel. Next day a vague thought crossed my mind, and I went back to the mortuary where I had preserved the body of the General. I examined the wound closely again. The tattooing was unmistakable. Now we know that the tattooing is due to the unburnt particles. There are ways you can see the unburnt particles actually under the microscope if you do a histology of the skin around the wound. I decided to snipe off some skin from around the wound and do the histological analysis. When I was putting the piece of skin in the formalin bottle, a Geiger-Muller counter which was lying there gave a loud beep, and I must say, it surprised me no end. Generally Geiger-Muller counters have no business being present in a mortuary until and unless you are doing a post-mortem on a radioactive body. I asked the mortuary attendant why they had kept this in the mortuary, and he told me a very strange reason. The biophysics department of that hospital was undergoing renovation, and they had kept all their instruments in other departments. By sheer chance the Geiger Muller counter, which the biophysics department was using for their experiments had come to the Forensic Medicine department, and they had found no better place to keep it than their mortuary. To come back to our serendipitous finding. To make sure, it was not an accident, I took the piece of skin away from the counter, and then brought it near again, and again it gave a loud beep. I was almost sure now that the General's body was radioactive. But how did it acquire radioactivity? I wasn't really sure. The whole of Malibotu did not have a single nuclear reactor, and I could not explain the reactivity in any way. To make myself sure, this time I cut a piece of skin from his foot and brought it near the counter, and was surprised again no end to find that the counter stayed quiet. I brought the piece of skin around the wound again near the counter, and again it gave a loud beep. Were they making the bullets with some radioactive substances? Did this radioactive bullet - which was lost anyway - rub off some of its radioactive material around the skin of the general. Radioactive bullets should be no better than ordinary lead bullets as far as their killing power is concerned, but just to make sure, I went to the ammunition factory of Malibotu and asked the Chief Engineer there. He told me that they were making bullets from an alloy which contained iron, copper and lead. Sure enough this did not help me in any way. The next day, I was talking to some Army Generals and I was amazed by an interesting piece of information regarding the General. In his youth, the general did stunts like eating whole iron nails. In fact he reveled in eating things made up of iron. He had once eaten the iron parts of a whole automobile in a single week. This is a phenomenon which many people can do in our country too. This is a very rare gift to people, and nobody really knows how they can do that, and why the nails don't hurt their guts. Well, doctors had wanted to know more about this interesting curiosity, and had asked him to undergo a stool test, but he had never agreed for that. Then finally he joined the army, and his spate of stunts ended with that. However insiders told me that while in Army, he still reveled in showing off these stunts privately off and on. People also told me that when he ate nails, he rarely had the need to eat regular food. In biological terms this meant that he was deriving all his energy from the iron nails that he ate. This set me thinking. A vague idea had started forming in my mind. Now I changed my plan, and instead of doing a histological examination, I sent the skin around the wound for chemical analysis. I really do not know why I did that. All that was sufficient for me to do was to have a look under the microscope. But perhaps I wanted to know the composition of the gunpowder they were using. I really can not say, why I sent the skin to the chemistry lab, but certainly I had a hunch I would get something there. Perhaps the look of the tattooing was somewhat different, and I wanted to know what it was. But most probably I was disturbed by the radioactivity found in the General's skin. I can not say, how that justified my sending the skin for chemical analysis, but all the same I did send the skin. My worst fears were confirmed, when I was told that they had not found any unburnt gunpowder in the skin. Instead they had found Uranium-235. In other words, there was U-235 in General's skin. And that was the cause of General's tattooing. Before proceeding further, I consider it my duty to tell that freshly precipitated Uranium is almost black and can certainly mimic tattooing very much. Now where did this U-235 came from? Were the Malibotuans using uranium in their guns? There is no way they could use that even if they wanted to. There simply was no Uranium in their small principality. Then how do I explain U-235? I thought endlessly, but couldn't think of anything plausible. There was no way left for me except to put an Overseas call through to India to my good old friend Dr. A.K.Jain of the Department of Physiology at our college. And sure enough next day he was there with me, of course at the expense of the Malibotuan Army. The Jolly Good Fellow was careful to bring some samples of his newly written Physiology books for Army Higher Ups! The Army officers appeared pleased when they received his books, although I doubt they made much head or tail out of them. Well, coming back to the point. As I told you earlier, a vague idea had started creeping in my mind. I now froze some pieces of General's skin. I had taken them from around the bullet wound, from his forearms, from his belly and from his shins. I asked Dr. Jain to go through the pieces, and tell me if he could find something unusual. Of course he had the facility of a very good lab provided by the Army General Hospital. Dr. Jain struggled with the pieces for some days, and then told me he had found a very strange enzyme in those tissues. He liked to call it iron-uranium convertase for want of better terminology. It was diffusely distributed throughout the cytoplasm of the cells, and what it did was unique. It somehow combined five atoms of iron into a single atom of uranium. Now before you throw up your arms in despair, let me tell you this is not entirely impossible. An atom of Uranium-235, if you recall your physics, contains 92 protons and 143 neutrons. So the total number of nucleons add up to 235. Iron on the other hand contains 26 protons and 30 neutrons. A single atom of iron thus has only 56 nucleons. We know that all nucleons are almost similar in weight. You would immediately interrupt me and inform that a neutron is slightly heavier than proton, and that it consists of one proton, one electron and one antineutrino. Well, I know all that, but since I am not talking of physics details, let us discuss this point at a macro level. Five atoms of iron thus have 280 nucleons in all. An atom of U-235 has just 235. Now if an enzyme converted five atoms of iron into a single atom of Uranium, about 45 nucleons (and some electrons) would have to be taken care of. Well, 40 of these nucleons (with an appropriate number of electrons) were converted into calcium and the remaining five nucleons were converted into energy. To sum up the equation which Dr. A.K. Jain gave me... 5 Fe⁵⁶ -> (Using Iron-Uranium Convertase as an enzyme)->U235 + Ca40 + energy ******************* This calcium was deposited in the bones. Are you getting the point now? Do you remember the general eating the iron nails and getting away with it? He actually had a remarkable enzyme in his cells, which could convert iron into Uranium and calcium, and the fellow was getting energy from that. That explained why he did not have the need to eat regular food when he was eating iron nails. I now sincerely believe that all these stuntmen who eat these iron things have this enzyme in their bodies. This has to be investigated however. How did this enzyme come to be in the General's body. Well, to tell you the truth, I do not have the vaguest notion. But I feel it was a very interesting mutation in one of his cells, when he was still in the embryonic stage, and this brought about the existence of this enzyme. Bishounga could easily be cleared now. I will tell you once again what had actually happened. There was someone hiding in those tall buildings which I mentioned earlier in my story. At an appropriate moment, he fired the gun from a distance and killed the general. He as well as the Army higher-ups who were supporting him thought that they could easily make Bishounga a scapegoat and get away with murder. But very strange things happened. The bullet which was made from an alloy containing iron passed through the neck, and in the process some iron was rubbed in and around the skin of the wound. This iron diffused into surrounding skin for a distance of about 5 cm, and was immediately converted into U-235 by the enzyme present within his skin cells, and the skin came to the laden heavily with U-235. This gave somewhat darkish appearance to the skin, which I confused with tattooing. In fact, so convincing was the appearance that any forensic pathologist would have made the same mistake. Had there been no Geiger-Muller counter in the autopsy room on that day, this discovery might never have been made. To this day, the real killer has never been found. Nor did I expect him to be found, as he was obviously a stooge of some Army higher ups, who actually staged the whole show. In fact, had they thought I would have found out the truth so quickly they would never have called me, and had got the autopsy done from their own doctors. They probably thought they had done a neat job, and wanted to prove to the world that they had left no stone unturned by calling a forensic pathologist from a neutral country. Anyway, what satisfied me most was that I could exonerate Bishounga with full authority and conviction. The poor fellow had a very beautiful devoted wife and three young children, and all of them knew no words to thank me when they came to know that Bishounga had finally been exonerated. My problem was solved, but I asked Dr. Jain if he could isolate the gene responsible for coding such an interesting enzyme. He showed his inability to do this, and I again had to put another overseas call - this time to my good old friend Dr. Lalji Singh of the Center for Cellular and Microbiological Research at Hyderabad. He is a world renowned geneticist, and he immediately agreed to come. Malibotuan Army would of course not pay for his visit, but the devil is so influential, he could arrange the funds immediately on his own, under the garb of a research scheme. He was not entirely wrong, I think. I will skip the details, but would say that he was ultimately able to isolate the gene. It was sitting on the p-arm of chromosome 16. He not only decoded the gene successfully, but could also insert it in a bacteriophage. To our surprise he could culture that bacteriophage on a medium rich in iron, and get trace quantities of U-235. He had in fact found a noble way to generate U-235. He is developing the technique further and is sure to be able to make U-235 in commercial quantities very soon. Sure enough he is travelling round the world lecturing on his new technique. As for Dr. Jain, he has written several research papers on this new enzyme, and I believe is mentioning it even in the next edition of his physiology book. As for me, I am being burdened with more dead bodies. Everybody conveniently forgot that it was I who was responsible for all these developments. Well, who cares, as long as I have more dead bodies to care for! *** This story appeared in Spandan 2000 , (a Maulana Azad Medical College inhouse magazine) on pages 12-15.

Forensic Toxicology THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE JANUARY 1998 ISSUE THE POISON SLEUTHS DEATH BY PHOSGENE -Dr. Anil Aggrawal "Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the dead body of a young man today. His eyes look suffused. What happened to him? Please tell me." "Good morning Tarun. The name of this 36 year old man is Manhar. He is a welder by profession and was working for the last five years as a welder in Messers Arihant Welders Ltd. Welders as you know work with hot torches, and seal metallic objects. He used to weld metallic pipes in a small confined space in basement. Yesterday he was suffering from common cold, but he reached his workplace at 9 am as usual and started welding pipes in the basement. After sometime, a cup of tea and some snacks were sent to him by the management as he was having common cold. This was not a usual practice, but as he was ill and the management wanted quick work on that day, this sympathetic gesture was made. He took tea and snacks and got back to work. Soon he started feeling as if his throat was dry and burning. His eyes began itching, and there was a copious outflow of tears. He took it merely to be an aggravation of his common cold symptoms, and kept on working. Soon however he started coughing violently. Still he did not take things seriously. He took some water to soothe his throat and continued working. When the cough became unbearable, he came up and told about this experience to the manager on duty. He asked him to relax on a side chair. Soon thereafter he died." "Oh, sure enough this is a mysterious death. What do you think happened in this case?" "A few facts about Manhar would be in order before I proceed with this story. Manhar was a Union leader, and for the last three months was fighting with the management for better working conditions and salary. I have talked to the Union and its other leaders. They all hold Manhar in great respect. They have come out with a most outrageous suggestion, and in fact that is part of the reason, why his body is with me today." "What have they suggested doctor? Please let me know." "Well, the Union leaders think that the management has secretly poisoned Manhar. There is no secret of the fact that the management did want to sack Manhar, the moment he took up the cause of workers. But they couldn't do so, because the Union threatened to go on strike. Since then the Management was thinking of various ways and means of doing away with him. The Union leaders- as well as the family members -think that the management sent poisonous tea and snacks to Manhar on that fateful day. Manhar was naive enough to think that the Management was being friendly to him, and took the tea. The fact that Manhar started having symptoms of throat irritation, redness of eyes and coughing immediately thereafter has lent strength to their suspicion." "Well come to think of doctor, even I think that he might have been poisoned." "Tarun, I have made a habit of examining the scene of crime always before starting the autopsy. So before starting the autopsy on this case, I asked police to take me to the place where he was working. I was surprised to find that he was working in a really cramped place in the basement. The place had a rather musty odour. "Perhaps you are suggesting that he died of suffocation. But he was working there daily for the last five years, and nothing happened to him!" "Yes that's right. But I looked around and found some strange looking cans there. I enquired about these cans and was told by the Management staff, that they contained dry-cleaning fluid. They were soon going to expand into dry-cleaning business and for this purpose had bought dry-cleaning fluid and had stored the cans there. Some of the cans were lying open...." "Sorry to interrupt you doctor, but is this observation of any help in this murder investigation?" "Oh yes, surely it is. When you look at all the facts, you can pinpoint the probable cause of his death." "Sorry doctor. I can't make any head or tail of the facts you have just mentioned." "Tarun dry-cleaning fluid usually contain chlorinated solvents, such as carbon tetrachloride or tricholoroethylene. I investigated about the contents of that dry cleaning fluid and found out that it contained tricholoroethylene. It is a well known fact that welding in a poorly ventilated, confined space in the presence of chlorinated solvents can cause phosgene to form rapidly in lethal concentrations. After I found the dry cleaning cans there, and saw how cramped the place was, I immediately came to the conclusion that Manhar must have died of phosgene poisoning. There were some additional pointers to my hunch. In the first place the place had a musty odour much like the actual smell of phosgene...." "But Manhar never noticed the smell. If phosgene was forming, he must have noticed it." "Phosgene is not a particularly offensive smelling gas. Its odour has been described as musty, resembling that of fresh mown hay or green corn. Of course, in high concentrations phosgene is rather pungent and mildly irritating, but Manhar was having severe cold on that day and it is quite possible that he couldn't notice the smell because of his cold. In addition to the smell, the other things, that go in favor of phosgene poisoning are the peculiar symptoms that he displayed...." "Oh, well, I am getting the idea. You certainly are a clever doctor. But let us begin from the beginning. Tell me something about phosgene first, so I could follow you better" "Tarun, Phosgene is a colorless gas, about 3.43 times heavier than air. It liquefies at 80 C. Phosgene is an acidic chloride and its chemical formula is COCl2 . It is known by several other names. Some of these are Carbonic dichloride, carbonyl chloride, carbon oxychloride, and chloroformyl chloride. It has a musty odor resembling fresh mown hay or green corn as I have already told you. Because of these peculiar properties, and especially the fact that it is heavier than air, it was used extensively in gas warfare in World War I, and caused 80 per cent of the deaths by gas in that conflict. Fortunately, gas warfare was sparingly used in World War II, otherwise the casualties could have been much more. A curious fact is that smokers report a flat, metallic taste when smoking in the presence of phosgene. Phosgene does not occur naturally and was first synthesized by Sir Humphry Davy in 1812 by means of passing carbon monoxide and chlorine through charcoal. It was quite natural for a curious mind to do such an experiment, because these two were the most poisonous gases known at that time, and one would have thought, he could perhaps create a deadlier gas by mixing the two chemically. In a way, he succeeded too, because phosgene is in fact deadlier than both the other gases. According to most estimates, Carbon monoxide can prove fatal if inhaled in a concentration of 1000 ppm for sometime....." "Sorry to interrupt you doctor, but would you tell me the meaning of ppm?" "Sure, ppm is an abbreviation of parts per million. When we talk of the toxicity of gases, we usually talk in terms of ppm. If I mix 1 cc of a poisonous gas with ordinary air in such a way that the final volume of the mixture turns out to be 1 million cc, the concentration of the poisonous gas in that mixture would be referred to as 1 ppm. Of course you can understand that to make the final mixture to be 1 million cc, I would have to use 999,999 cc of ordinary air. Similarly if I mix 1000 cc of a poisonous gas with 999,000 cc of air, the resulting mixture would measure 1 million cc and the concentration of poisonous gas in that mixture would be 1000 ppm." "Oh, that is quite clear doctor. So you were telling me about the lethality of certain gases." "Yes, I told you about the lethality of Carbon monoxide. For chlorine the fatal concentration has been estimated to be somewhat lesser; about 400 ppm, but phosgene kills rapidly in as low concentration as 50 ppm. Its lethality is compounded by the fact, that it is not a particularly irritating gas, being only mildly irritating and that too in high concentrations. Because of this curious fact, the victim does not make any attempt to run away from the gas, as he would do if he were exposed to, say, chlorine. This is what happened in Manhar's case. In fact phosgene is such a dangerous gas that cylinders of phosgene are not normally supplied by the manufacturers unless they have satisfied themselves that the purchaser and his premises are satisfactory." "But why would anyone want to buy such a deadly gas doctor?" "Tarun, Phosgene is an important industrial chemical being used in the synthesis or manufacture of isocyanates, polyurethane, polycarbonate resins, aniline dyes, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and insecticides. It is also used in the "Uranium enrichment" process. Because of its wide use in industry, there is always a danger of workers getting dangerously exposed to it. Currently it is generally agreed that a Maximum Allowable Concentration (MAC) of phosgene should be 1.0 ppm of gas, which means that during a 10 hour continuous working period, there should be no more than 0.1 ppm of the gas in the environment (0.1 ppm x 10 hours = 1 ppm). Phosgene can form by burning of several compounds, most important of which is polyurethane. This is the chemical with which furniture upholsteries are made. In December, 1987, in Tampa, Florida, an individual was filling an air mattress with a hair dryer when the mattress exploded, burned and released phosgene into the apartment. This occurred because the mattress was made of polyurethane. This gas represents one of the many hazards to fire-fighting personnel and fire victims for similar reasons. Welding in a poorly ventilated, confined space in the presence of chlorinated solvents or other halides can cause phosgene to form rapidly in lethal concentrations as I have already told you. You would be surprised to know that phosgene was also implicated in the Bhopal tragedy that occurred in our country in December 1984..." "Yes, that certainly surprises me doctor. Because I was under the impression that the gas responsible for the tragedy was Methyl Isocyanate (MIC)." "Oh, sure it was. But that was just one of the main gases involved. MIC in turn is made from phosgene and methylamine and is used as an intermediate product in the manufacture of carbamate insecticide Carbaryl, or Sevin, the chemical which Union Carbide used to make. On that fateful day nearly 50,000 pounds of stored MIC was released in vapor and liquid forms over a period of 2 hours. Because of the hypothesized reactions that took place within the storage tank and in the surrounding atmosphere, it is thought that MIC, phosgene, and hydrogen cyanide all played a significant role in this disaster." "That's certainly a good addition to my knowledge doctor. Tell me doctor, how does phosgene kill?" "Tarun, phosgene damages the body in several ways. It slowly hydrolyzes in mucus membrane water to produce carbon dioxide and hydrochloric acid. Because this hydrolysis tends to occur slowly, phosgene is less irritating to the mucous membrane of the upper airway and eyes and therefore penetrates more deeply into the lungs. Formation of hydrochloric acid within the lungs causes damage to lung cells. This causes water to ooze out of the blood into the lungs. This in turn causes lungs to become water logged, a condition medically known as pulmonary edema. This is a very important and conspicuous finding in deaths due to phosgene. I have examined Manhar's lungs, and they are severely water logged. Hydrochloric acid can also cause red blood cells to break down, a process medically known as hemolysis. This usually occurs at high concentrations. There are other complex reactions too, which cause severe kidney and liver damage." "Doctor, earlier you said that Manhar's symptoms also led you to conclude phosgene poisoning. Can you tell me what are the symptoms experienced in phosgene poisoning." "Oh sure. In concentrations of 3 ppm, phosgene causes dryness and burning of the throat. At 4 ppm, it causes eye irritation, redness of eyes, and watering of eyes. At 5-10 ppm, it causes coughing. Exposure to 25 ppm for 30 minutes is very dangerous, and even brief exposures to 50 ppm or greater is rapidly fatal. You will remember that Manhar displayed roughly the same symptoms. 80% of mortalities occur within 48 hours of the initial exposure, which may be considered as its fatal period. There are no specific diagnostic tests for phosgene exposure. A detailed and meticulous history and crime scene examination is the only likey thing to help. And that certainly has helped me. Come let us tell the police that the management is innocent. They have not given any poison to Manhar. But certainly they were careless to keep those cans in the basement. The management may be charged for being careless, but certainly the charge of murder can not be proved." "Oh, how very clever of you doctor. This was a most interesting discussion. Tell me what are you going to tell me the next time?" "Tarun, next time, I would tell you about a very deadly poison- Sodium Monofluoroacetate, commonly known as SMFA."

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-31 WHEN SEX PERVERSIONS LEAD TO ACCIDENTAL HANGING This time I am going to tell you about an extremely interesting case, which had completely baffled all police experts. On 24.11.1994, I was called to a scene of death. It was a dense forest on the outskirts of Delhi. A 22 year old male, who was later identified as Pyarelal, was found hanging from the branch of a tree. Both his knees were on the ground. This in itself was not abnormal or baffling. What had baffled the police, was the fact that his penis was exposed. It was coming out of the fly of his pants which was open. (Please reproduce fig. 3 on page 164 here: Source-"Medico-legal annual 1977) . On the ground was lying a sex magazine, showing the photographs of some nude girls. To all intents and purposes, it appeared that it was a sexual revenge murder. The police had definitely ruled out suicide. It is understandable that no suicidal patient would ever commit suicide in such an embarrassing position. In fact, it is well-known to all police officers and forensic experts alike that ladies who commit suicide by drowning take care to tie their saris near the legs. This is done, because otherwise the water frequently lifts up the sari, exposing their genitals, and no lady, even after death, wants to be exposed in that way. Inspector Matadeen had formed a hypothetical story like this. Pyarelal must be a flirt. He must be carrying on an affair with some girl of the locality. Her brother or some other relative may be against this relationship. They must have asked him to refrain from this activity. Pyarelal must not have paid any attention to this. So they murdered him and then hanged him from the branch of the tree, exposing his genitals. This could be a symbolic revenge for them, showing everyone what led him to his final undoing! To be sure, cases like this are not uncommon. I have seen some similar cases, but in those cases the culprits had amputated the penis of the deceased and inserted it in his own mouth! This act shows the utter contempt the killers bore in mind for the deceased's sexual excesses. When Matadeen made enquiries, it was found that Pyare had indeed made sexual advances towards a local girl Sarita. She was considered one of the sexiest girls of the locality. She had not heeded to his advances, and had even complained to her brother Ramdayal, who was something of a local goon. Ramdayal had once beaten Pyarelal very badly and had sworn to kill him if he saw him making advances towards his sister again. Ramdayal was called at once and enquiries made. All evidence was against him. Many people of the locality affirmed that he was a local goon, and had once beaten Pyarelal very badly. They said that once he had even sworn to kill Pyarelal in front of every one. However Ramdayal pleaded total ignorance. The police was about to take him to their infamous torture chamber, when I arrived at the scene. When I saw the scene, I was sure at once that it was not a case of murder. There had to be great disturbance around, had it been a case of murder, but the surroundings were quite normal and undisturbed. There were several other factors which made me come to that conclusion. If the police were thinking on the lines of murder, it was because they were entirely unaware of an entity known as sexual hanging. Sexual hanging is a very baffling kind of phenomenon which has not been understood in its entirety till now. To understand it let us dwell on a few vital facts first. If someone restricts the entry of air in his lungs (either by conscious stoppage or respiration, or by enclosing the face by a plastic bag), his blood will receive a lesser supply of oxygen. This state is technically known as anoxia (no oxygen) or hypoxia (less oxygen). It is a well-known fact that during a state of anoxia or hypoxia, a person can enjoy sexual pleasure much more intensely. Why this happens is not very clearly understood however. Some people, especially males, come to know of this fact quite accidentally or may be through some friends. They can then induce hypoxia by putting a noose round their neck, and then relaxing their body in such a way that part of the body weight comes to rest on the noose. The noose constricts the neck, producing a state of hypoxia. The person then masturbates, looking at pictures of nude women. Once the masturbatory act is over, these people remove the noose from their neck and go back to their work. Their intention is never to kill themselves. It is only to enjoy heightened sensations of sex during hypoxic states. These persons usually return to that place the next day and masturbate again, making the same complicated arrangements. A sexual deviant may go on repeating this practice for years! Sometimes however quite accidentally the pressure on the neck increases, and the person may die inadvertently. Thus sexual hanging is neither a case of murder nor of suicide. It is a case of accidental hanging. Sometimes, the victim ties himself up in quite a complicated fashion, and then masturbates (Please reproduce fig. 2 on page 163 here: Source-"Medico-legal annual 1977) . In this figure, the person has used a dog leash and collar straps for suspension. Towels were found folded over the penis and scrotum and a collar strap was buckled about his wrists which were behind his back. Such person are suffering from a special sexual perversion known as sexual bondage. They derive pleasure in sex only after they have been tied up. Sometimes the legs may be tied up in a complicated fashio n (please reproduce fig. 6 here: Source-"Medico-legal annual 1977). In this figure you can also see a towel beneath the underpants. Besides tying themselves up, some people cover their faces with rubberized sheets (Please reproduce fig. 4 and fig. 5 on page 165 here: Source-"Medico-legal annual 1977). This produces additional hypoxia. The main problem in these cases is to differentiate whether these cases were of suicide, murder or sexual hanging. The scene of sexual asphyxia is always some quiet place, (as in the case of Pyarelal) where the complicated preparations for an act can be made without fear of discovery or disturbance. Careful examination of the scene will reveal evidence that it has been used for similar purposes in the past. This evidence may be in the form of `grooving' of a wooden beam from which a rope has been suspended. As we have seen, some of these victims have been carrying such activity for years. Repeated acts of hanging themselves may produce this `grooving' which we have just talked about. In a similar manner, if the hanging used to be done from pipes, there may be scraping away of paintwork from pipes. The paraphernalia (Please reproduce fig. 9 here: Source-"Medico-legal annual 1977) of these perverts is quite interesting. It includes protective pads, straps, hooks and even parachute rigging. Sometimes hooks are also found at the scene. This also indicates the practice of sexual hanging (Please reproduce fig. 7 and fig. 8 here: Source-"Medico-legal annual 1977). In these photographs you can see a victim suspended from hooks! In the case of Pyarelal, the diagnosis of sexual hanging was not difficult to make. The penis was extruding through the pants, which made me suspicious at once. But what clinched the issue was the presence of a nude magazine near his feet. When I searched the scene, I could recover a bag, in which Pyarelal's sexual paraphernalia was lying. I gave the verdict of sexual hanging, and Ramdayal was released. Ramdayal came to me and told me that I had saved his life, otherwise he was sure to go to the gallows. On that day I realized how useful science can be!

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-35 DEATH BY HEROIN On 31 January 1993, a very interesting case was brought to me. A 23 year old man was found dead in his home in bathroom. The door of the bathroom was ajar, and the body was lying in a supine position (Please reproduce fig XX-6 on page 536 here). The man was identified as one Satish Malik who had moved in that house only about 2 years back. The police did not find any marks of injury on his body. But they did find one strange looking mark on his neck (please reproduce fig XX-15 on page 542 here). It was suspected that Malik had been strangled by someone. Their main reason for thinking this was the strange looking mark on the neck. When the police made enquiries they found that Malik was a married man. He had married one Sarita only last year. He worked as an executive in a cloth firm in New Delhi. From the day Malik had married, there was some fight going on in the house. Malik thought that his wife Sarita was infidel while Sarita denied this outright. But Malik wouldn't listen to her explanations. The fight increased to such an extent that Sarita's brother Ramesh had to intervene. Ramesh was a well-built man, who did not have a very good reputation in his locality. Some people believed that he did some underhand business too. He was believed to be connected with the underworld. Ramesh told Malik not to harass his sister, but Malik wouldn't listen. Ultimately Ramesh got so frustrated that once he even threatened Malik with dire consequences, if he did not mend his ways. Many people knew about this, because the next day Malik went around and told how he had been threatened by his brother-in-law, who should actually be more respectful to him. On the day of death, Sarita had gone to her friend's house in Jullunder to attend a wedding. She was to come back after five days. On the morning of 31 January, Ramesh visited Malik apparently to admonish him once again. Many neighbors saw him entering the house at about 9.00 am. Soon after they heard angry and excited voices coming from inside the house. All the neighbors knew the trouble brewing in the house, so they did not care. At about 10.00 am they saw Ramesh stamping out of the house in anger. There were no further voices from inside the house. At 12.00 noon, the washerwoman came as usual. But when she rang the bell, no one opened the door. She got suspicious and informed the neighbors. The neighbors knew what had transpired in the morning and they informed the police. The police broke open the door, and found the dead body of Malik as already described. All evidence pointed towards Ramesh as the killer. The police immediately summoned him and held him responsible for the murder. Ramesh seemed horrified to know that his brother-in-law had actually been killed. He admitted that he did have some problems with his brother-in-law, but actually he never intended to do anything to him. How could he kill his own sister's husband? But the police wouldn't listen to him, and took him to their "torture chamber" to get the truth out of him. It was at this stage that the case was brought to me. When I had a careful look at the body, I found that there was a fine froth coming out from his nose and mouth (please reproduce fig XX-22 on page 546 here). This immediately made me suspicious of something. I asked the investigating officer to show me his shoes. The police officer was initially a little bit surprised, but he knew that if I was asking for something, it really was an important thing. When the shoes were brought to me, I reflected their "tongue" (the movable squarish shaped leather portion over which shoe laces are tied), and looked at the inside. As I had suspected, I found that they were torn from the inside and some cotton had been removed from them (Please reproduce fig XX-4 on page 534 here) . My suspicions were confirmed. But just to be doubly sure, I looked at his legs. Again as expected, I saw some tattoos there (please reproduce fig XX-20 on page 544 here). On the wrist there was a long needle track (please reproduce fig XX-13 on page 541 here). I clinched the diagnosis. I called the investigating officer, and told him that Ramesh hadn't killed Malik. I told him that I knew how he had died, and asked him not to torture Ramesh any more and release him at once. The police officer looked back at me in surprise and said,"But sir, how could you say just by looking at the shoes, legs and wrists that Ramesh hasn't killed him? There is such a strong circumstantial evidence against Ramesh. You have not even conducted an autopsy. How could you say that Ramesh has nothing to do with this death?" "Well, I have seen such cases in the past", I said. Of course the subsequent autopsy conducted by me proved that I was right. The cause of death after conducting an autopsy was the same as I had thought earlier immediately after seeing the body. The readers may be surprised as to what magic I had done to find out the cause of death so quickly. Well, before going any further, let me tell you a little bit about a dangerous narcotic drug heroin . Heroin is derived from morphine, which itself comes from the poppy plant. It is self‑administered by the addict in a number of ways: he can orally ingest it, sniff it, inject it beneath the skin (known as skin‑popping because the skin is popped up and heroin injected), or inject it directly into a vein (known as mainlining because it is put in a main line, so to say). Mainlining is the most popular method of heroin intake. Consuming the drug by mouth or by sniffing does not give rise to as intense a pleasure as by injecting it directly into a vein. This is because the drug is broken down by the stomach juices. In addition, the veins carrying the drug from the stomach, first pass through the liver, where most of the remaining drug is broken down further. For this very reason, whenever doctors want to give morphine to their patients for medical reasons, they do so by injection. One of the most amazing things in the dark and murky world of addicts is the mechanics of mainlining. For this the addicts use an elaborate paraphernalia, sometimes called outfits, works or toys , which include a variety of items (Please reproduce fig XX-3 on page 533 here). A spoon or some similar device called a cooker , is used for mixing and heating the heroin after being mixed with a small quantity of water. Sometimes the handle of the spoon is bent downwards and "doubled on itself" so that the hollow of the spoon will remain in level when kept on the table. The syringe, or spike as it is sometimes called, is either a commercially manufactured syringe or a home‑made syringe consisting of an eye‑ dropper with a rubber suction device. The needle is then fitted to the eyedropper. The kit also includes a small ball of cotton, which is placed in the spoon (please note the small cotton ball in the spoon). The heroin is drawn into the syringe through this cotton. This ball of cotton is supposed to filter out any "poison", but, ironically it is this very ball which adds dirt to the already dirty solution. Moreover, sometimes small cotton fibers get sucked in the syringe and are inadvertently injected into the vein. This is very dangerous because these cotton fibers get lodged in the lungs leading to serious problems. The same dirty cotton is used again and again and what is quite amazing is that the addicts really believe that the cotton is filtering out the poison. In times of distress, when a fresh supply of the drug is not available, a typical addict will add this cotton to plain water and inject the resulting solution into his veins. Since the cotton becomes saturated with heroin through overuse, the resulting solution does give some relief to the addict. This practice is known as shooting the cottons . Malik was actually a heroin addict . He used to take heroin regularly. He had removed the cotton from the "tongue" of his shoes only because of this purpose. Because of drug addiction his family life was never well-adjusted. The figure of "works" also shows a long cord. This is used as a tourniquet. Also known as the tie‑rag it is any article such as the cord shown, a necktie, towel or a belt that can be tied around the arm or leg to make the veins very prominent (please reproduce fig XX-19 on page 544 here). This is a method which doctors use to given injections directly into the vein. The tourniquet is placed and tightened slightly above the elbow, so that veins in the front of the elbow become prominent. It is very easy to introduce a needle in the swollen vein. Those, who are unable to get hold of a hypodermic needle, tend to use things like the safety pin, sewing needle and even razor blades to make a hole in the vein and insert the eyedropper directly into the vein hole. On occasions, the addict might personalize the kit by making up a special leather or metal container. More often it is simply placed in an empty cigarette package, wrapped with a rubber band and hidden in the dirtiest corner of the addict's home. The reason for this is to take advantage of the fact that most investigators do not like to get their hands dirty during searches. I asked the police officer to search Malik's house thoroughly. On searching sure enough, the whole "kit" was found in one of his desks. Now let me tell you how the addict takes heroin. He begins the preparation for injection by emptying the contents of his sachet of heroin (known as bindle or balloon ), into the cooker . After adding enough water to liquefy the substance, a heat source is placed at the bottom of the cooker and the substance is observed closely until the first bubble appears. The addict's intention is to attain approximate body temperature. Then the solution from the cooker is drawn through the cotton ball into the syringe. Just at this moment, the tourniquet is applied above the elbow. Now the needle is inserted slowly into the vein until the blood can be seen coming into the eye‑dropper. The rush of the blood in the dropper indicates that the vein has been successfully punctured. The drug is now pushed into the vein. Some addicts prefer to suck the blood back into the dropper three to four times in order to ensure that no trace of the drug remains in the dropper. This practice is known as booting . The effect of the injection is immediate and intense. Addicts describe it in various ways, ranging from a pleasant tingling sensation running up and down the limbs and settling in the abdominal region, to a sensation not unlike a sexual orgasm which tapers off into a feeling of lethargic well‑being, resulting in a disregard for problems, and a total lack of a sense of responsibility. The condition is deeply desired by the addict and lasts for several hours following an injection. An addict generally begins his career by injecting in the veins of the elbow. Due to repeated injections, however, the veins collapse and deteriorate and the addict is forced to move further down the forearm and then towards the back of the hand. As further deterioration takes place, the addict moves down to the feet and then upwards, travelling from the legs to the thighs and the groin area. Finally all these veins are scarred. A heroin addict can be spotted at once by just looking at the condition of his veins. When all the limb veins become scarred, some addicts start injecting the drug into the veins of the neck; this may cause needle track marks there. These were the marks that the police saw on Malik's neck, and thought he had been throttled. Actually they were the needle track marks which were produced because sometimes Malik used to take heroin through the veins of his neck . Sometimes an addict can get a sample of heroin, which is adulterated with a dangerous poison, strychnine. Its injection known as hot shot can cause quick death. Hot shot can also occur when an addict, used to injecting heroin of 3 to 5 per cent purity, gets a purer blend of the drug. Death can occur in this case, since the addict is not used to higher concentrations. One of the strangest findings in these addicts is the finding of strange tattoos. I found these tattoos in Malik's legs as you already know. The addicts make these tattoos to hide the needle track marks that are produced by repeated injections of heroin. They are afraid that if someone looks at their needle marks, he will at once recognize that they were drug addicts. Instead if they hide their needle marks under the tattoos, no one would know about them. I found the tattoos on Malik's arms too (please reproduce fig XX-14 here). After Ramesh left on that fateful day, Malik became very depressed and wanted to have his daily ration of heroin. Unfortunately the heroin sample he had bought the previous day from his drug dealer contained strychnine, and this killed him instantaneously. His body organs revealed presence of both heroin as well as strychnine. When the police released Ramesh, he came and fell on my legs. He said that his life had been saved because of me only. The poor fellow did not know that it was not me, but forensic science which had saved him. I only used the science! ( To protect the identity of the individuals, their names, as well as the various dates of occurrence have been changed )